CHAPMAN 



General Editor 
GEO.RBAKER 




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SECTION III 
THE ENGLISH DRAMA 

FROM ITS BEGINNING TO THE PRESENT DAY 



GENERAL EDITOR 

GEORGE PIERCE BAKER 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN 
HASVABO UNIVKRSITY 







GEORGE CHAPMAN 
From the frontispiece of The Whole Worh of Horner^ 1 6 1 6 



ALL FOOLES 



AND 

THE GENTLEMAN USHER 

By GEORGE CHAPMAN 

EDITED BY 

THOMAS MARC PARROTT, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 



BOSTON, U.S.A., AND LONDON 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

1907 



] U^rtARY of COriGRESsj 
I wo Couies Received | 

SEP 6 »9or 

Cooyncht Bntry 



.A 3T"? 



j COPY a( 



^^ 



COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY D. C. HEATH & CO. 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



J pvtfatotv Bott 

"^ In this volume I have attempted to present the student 
of Elizabethan drama with a new and carefully edited 
text of two of Chapman's best comedies. I have in each 
case printed from transcripts made of copies in the Library 
of Edinburgh University and in the Bodleian, and I 
would offer my thanks in passing for the unfailing kind- 
ness and courtesy which attended my work in both places. 

The transcripts in the first place and the proof after- 
wards have been carefully collated with the original 
copies. The text of both the plays in this volume has 
■ also been corrected in proof by copies of the Quartos in 
the Boston Public Library. For this final collation I am 
indebted to the General Editor of this Series. It is my hope 
that the text here presented is as nearly accurate as it can 
be made. 

In the brief Biography I have attempted to restate the 
few known facts of Chapman's life in such a way as to 
give what seems to me a more connected view of his 
work than is usually afforded. In the Introduction I have 
tried to trace the development of Chapman's art as a comic 
dramatist, and to fix his conception of comedy as com- 
pared with that of contemporary writers. The Notes 
are intended to show Chapman's occasional borrowings 
from older works, to explain obscure allusions, and when 
necessary to elucidate involved passages by the method of 
paraphrase. The interpretation of single words has been 
entrusted to the Glossary. 

In the preparation of this edition I have received as- 
sistance from many friends. I wish to express in partic- 
ular my thanks to Mr. C. W. Kennedy, of Princeton, 



vi JBrrtator^ il^ote 

who first called my attention to the dependence of All 
Fools upon the Adelphi of Terence ; to Dr. Henry Brad- 
ley for repeated assistance in the interpretation and emen- 
dation of the text 5 to Dr. Furnivall, Mr. P. A. Daniel, 
and Mr. T. J. Wise for valuable suggestions in regard 
to the plays in general and the question of the authen- 
ticity of the dedication of All Fools in particular^ and to 
Professor E. K. Rand for aid in tracing two of Chap- 
man' s Latin passages. Mr. V. L. Collins, of the Prince- 
ton University Library, enabled me to run down a 
specially puzzling allusion. Finally, my thanks are due 
to Mr. W. H. demons, of Princeton, for his careful 
reading of the proof-sheets, and to the General Editor 
of this Series for much salutary criticism as the book was 
passing through the press. 

T. M. P. 



'BfOQtapl^t 



The little that we know of Chapman's life is derived mainly 
from Anthony a Wood. (^Athenae Oxonienses, 169 1.) The inscrip- 
tion ^ on his portrait prefixed to The Whole Works of Homer, 16 16, 
points to 1559 as the year of his birth. In his poem Euthymiae 
Raptus Chapman himself mentions Hitchin in Hertfordshire as his 
native place. 

About 1574, according to Wood, Chapman, ** being well 
grounded in school-learning, was sent to the University, but whether 
first to this of Oxon. or that of Cambridge is to me unknown. Sure 
I am that he spent some time in Oxon,^ where he was observed 
to be most excellent in the Latin and Greek tongues, but not in logic 
or philosophy, and therefore I presume that that was the reason 
why he took no degree here." 

From 1574 to 1594 we know nothing whatever of Chapman's 
life. Acheson ^ believes him to have been a schoolmaster at 
Hitchin, but this assumption rests mainly upon the identification of 
Chapman with Holofernes in Love's Labour 'sLost, an identification 
which is not likely to commend itself to most students of Chapman. 
It has also been assumed that the poet spent some part of this time 
upon the Continent. The evidence drawn for this opinion from 
Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany, may be thrown aside, for it is 
most unlikely that Chapman had anything to do with the com- 
position of that play.* On the other hand, in the Second Hymn 
of Chapman's Shadoiv of Night, 1594, there is a vivid description 

1 Georgius Chapmanus, Homeri Metaphrastes. jEta : lvii. mdcxvi. 

2 Warton, History of English Poetry, IV, J2I, States that he spent two 
years at Trinity College, Oxford. 

3 Shakespeare and the Rival Poet, Arthur Acheson. John Lane, 190J. 

4 For a discussion of the authorship of this play see Ward, English 
Dramatic Literature, u,<^Z7 seq., Fleay, Chronicle of the English Drama, 
II, 156 seq., and Robertson, Did Shakespeare write Titus Andronicus? 
12} seq. There is no reason, except a publisher's statement twenty years 
after the poet's death, for ascribing this play to Chapman. 



viii llBiograpl)^ 

of a skirmish between English and Spanish troops near Nimeguen in 
Holland. In this passage Chapman, in speaking of the English sol- 
diers, uses the pronoun " we," as if he had been one of them, and 
there is, after all, no reason why Chapman, like Ben Jonson, should 
not have seen service in the Low Countries. 

In 1594 we find Chapman in London engaged in '* virtuous and 
elaborate studies," ^ composing poetry, and apparently vieing with 
Shakespeare for the patronage of the liberal and art-loving South- 
ampton. The Shadoiv of Night appeared in 15945 in 1595 O'viJ's 
Banquet of Sense (not a translation from Ovid, as a German writer ^ 
has stated, but an original poem), A Coronet for his Mistresse Phil- 
osophies and The Amorous Zodiacke. ^ 

In 1596 Chapman wrote a vigorous bit of verse in praise of Eng- 
lish valour, entitled De Guiana, as a preface to an account of Eng- 
lish exploration in South America; and in 1598 he published a 
conclusion to Marlowe's unfinished Hero and Leander, dedicating the 
work to Lady Walsingham, the wife of his friend and patron, Sir 
Thomas Walsingham.^ In the same year he dedicated his first 
attempt at a translation of the Iliad, Se-ven Books of the Iliads of 
Homer, to the Earl of Essex, and a little later in the same year he 
published Achilles'' Shield, from the eighteenth book of the Iliad. 

By this time Chapman had already begun to write for the stage, 
for Meres in Wit'' s Treasury, 1598, mentions him as one of the best 
writers both for comedy and tragedy. Many of his early plays have 
no doubt perished ; the only two that we know to have been pro- 
duced before Meres wrote — The Blind Beggar of Alexandria and 
An Humorous Day'' s Mirth — are both comedies. The first of these 
plays was produced by the Admiral's Men at Henslowe's theatre, the 
Rose, on Feb. 12, 1595-6, with great success, and was performed 
some twenty times before May, 1597, when it yielded the stage 
to the Comedy of Humours, which we may safely identify with An 
Humorous Day"" s Mirth. During the following year Chapman con- 
tinued to work for Henslowe. He was engaged on a *' plotte of 

1 Wood, At'hen. Oxon. 11, 576. 

2 A. LohfF, George Chapman : Berliner Dissertation., 1905, p. 26. 

3 Sidney Lee, Mo2«rn Philology., Oct. 1905, has shown that this poem is 
a translation from the French of Gilles Durant. 

4 See /?/)/'c«^fx, p. I J9, note 2, for further information about Sir Thomas 
Walsingham. 



Biograpl)^ ix 

Bengemen's," possibly the tragedy of Mortimer ^^ of which Jonson's 
plot has come down to us. He received payments from Henslowe 
for several plays now lost : The iylle of a nvoman^ usually cited 
as The Will of a Woman^ but according to the latest editor of 
Henslowe' 8 Diary '^ more probably, The Isle {or III) of a Woman • 
The Fountain of Neiu Fashions^ and a Pastoral Tragedy. He also 
composed for Henslowe the first draft of his All Fools, called origin- 
ally The World Runs on Wheels, and later All Fools but the Fool.^ 
The Blind Beggar was published in 1598 and An Humorous Day'' s 
Mirth in 1599, both apparently without Chapman's consent or, 
at least, supervision. In the latter year he apparently severed his 
connection with Henslowe, as his name does not occur again in the 
Diary. 

It is commonly stated that about this time Chapman withdrew 
from the stage to devote himself to his translation of the Iliad. 
This, however, is far from probable. The first instalments of this 
work appeared in 1598 before Chapman broke with Henslowe, the 
next not before 1609, at which time Chapman was under the patron- 
age of Prince Henry. It is more likely that about the close of the 
sixteenth century Chapman simply transferred his services as a play- 
wright from Henslowe's company to the Chapel Boys, who were 
playing at the private theatre in Blackfriars from 1598 to 1603. 
For this company he seems to have written May-Day, probably 
acted about 1600 or 1601, although not printed till 16 1 1 ; Sir Giles 
Goosecap,* published anonymously in 1606, but in large part, if 
not wholly, the work of Chapman in 1601 or 1602 5 The Gentle- 
man Usher, ^ written possibly in 1602 ; and to have revised All Fools 
in the form in which it has come down to us, in 1602 or 1603. 

1 The tragedy mentioned by Henslowe on Jan. 4 and Jan. 8, 1597/8 
may be the same as this, or another tragedy, nameless and lost. 

2 Henslowe's Diary., p. 226, W. W. Greg, 1904. Hazlitt {Manual for 
the Collector., etc., p. 94) states that an early MS. copy of The Gentleman 
Usher was sold among Heber's MSS. under the name of the The JVill of 
a Woman. 

I Henslowe's entry on July 2, 1599. 

4 See The Authorship of Sir Gyles Goosecappe., Modern Philology, July, 
1906. 

5 The date of The Gentleman Usher is uncertain, but it falls between 
the performance of Sir Giles Goosecap, to which it alludes (see Note 
171, 7-8, p. 284), and the entry by Valentine Syms in the Stationers'' 
Register, November 26, 1605. 



The latter play ^ was performed at court before King James on 
New Year's Night, 1604-5, ^^^ published in the same year. 

Monsieur D' Oli've was written probably in 1603 or 1604, since it 
was performed by Her Majesty's Children of the Revels, the com- 
pany which had succeeded the Chapel Children at the Blackfriars 
Theatre, in Jan., 1604. For the same company Chapman in 1605 
joined with Jonson and Marston in the composition of Eastward Ho, 
a play whose satirical remarks on King James's countrymen brought 
down upon the authors the royal displeasure and led to the imprison- 
ment of both Jonson and Chapman. They were even threatened 
with mutilation, and Jonson' s old mother secretly conveyed to him 
a paper of *' lustie strong poison " that, if things came to the worst, 
he might save himself by a Roman death from torture and public 
shame. An interesting series of letters written by Chapman and 
Jonson on this occasion, entreating the pardon of the King and the 
favour of the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of 
Pembroke, and other courtly patrons of literature, was discovered by 
Mr. Dobell in 1901 and reprinted in Professor Schelling's Eastivard 
Hoe and The Alchemist.'^ Jonson and Chapman were soon released 
from prison, — Marston seems to have escaped altogether, — and 
the sensation caused by the affair undoubtedly served as an adver- 
tisement of Chapman's work as a dramatist and led to the speedy 
publication of a number of his comedies. Two editions of Eastivard 
Ho and one of All Fools appeared in 1605 ; and Sir Giles Goose- 
cap, Monsieur D^ Oli-ve, and The Gentleman Usher, in 1606. Mr. 
Fleay ^ believes that the governor whose foolish words and actions 
furnish the farcical close of the Widoiv'' s Tears is a satire on the 
judicial authorities with whom Chapman had come into contact at 
the time of his arrest. If this be so, we may date this play about 
1606 — it was not published until 161 2 — and see in it the last 
of Chapman's comedies. 

As Meres tells us. Chapman had before 1598 obtained a high 
reputation for his tragedies, but the earliest play of this sort which 



1 Cunningham, Revels Accounts^ published for Shakespeare Society^ p. 
204. The entry is forged, but is supposed to be based upon genuine docu- 
ments. 

2 Belles-Lettres Series, pp. 159-164. 

3 Chronicle of the English Drama, l,6l. 



has been preserved, Bussy D' Ambois,^ cannot have been composed 
in its present form before the death of Elizabeth m 1603. This play 
is, then, the first of a group of dramas dealing with events in the 
contemporary history of France on which Chapman's fame as a tragic 
dramatist depends. 

Bussy was followed in the spring of 1608 — not 1605,^ as 
stated in the Dictionary of National Biography — by the double play, 
The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron. The per- 
formance of these plays, in one of which the reigning queen of 
France was represented as boxing the ears of her royal husband's 
mistress, gave great offence to the French ambassador, who suc- 
ceeded in having the performance stopped, and endeavoured, though 
apparently in vain, to have the author punished. Chapman, how- 
ever, found great difficulty in securing a license for the publication 
of the plays and was finally obliged to issue them in a mangled form, 
with large omissions, among others of the offensive scene, and with 
considerable revision.^ The Re'venge of Bussy D^ Ambois, founded, 
as Professor Boas has shown, upon the same authority as the Byron 
plays (Grimeston's translation in 1607 of Jean de Serres' History^^ 
probably followed them shortly, and the noble play of Chabot^ pub- 
lished after Chapman's death (in 1639, in a form somewhat revised 
by Shirley),* closes the series of the French tragedies. 

With this play Chapman's activity as a dramatist ceases for an 
indefinite period, or possibly terminates altogether. He had, about 
1604, or possibly after his release from prison in 1605, been ap- 
pointed "sewer in ordinary" to Prince Henry, and received from 

1 Professor Boas {Bussy D' Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy., Belles- 
Lettres Series., p. xii, note) calls attention to certain bits of evidence which 
go to show the existence of a play on Bussy before the death of Elizabeth. 
If this play were Chapman's it must, as Professor Boas points out, have 
been considerably revised after the accession of James I, when it was 
acted by Paul's Boys. 

2 The date 1605 is founded upon a misprint in the English translation 
of von Raumer's Briefeaus Paris xur Erlduterung., etc., pt. 2, pp. 276-277. 
In the German original the date is rightly given as April 5, 1608. 

J See Chapman's letter to the licenser printed in the Athenaeum., April 
6, 1901. 

4 Chabot is based upon the relation of Etienne Pasquier (Recherches 
de la France). The story of Chabot first appears in the 1607 edition of 
this work (Book v, chap. 12), and is repeated, with details which occur in 
the play, in the edition of 1611. 



xii Biograjpl)^ 

him a small annual pension together with the promise of a hand- 
some reward upon the completion of his Homeric translations. To 
this work Chapman on the conclusion of his activity as a dramatist 
devoted himself for a number of years. He published the first twelve 
books of the Iliad, ^ 1610 ca. , a complete translation in 161 1, 
a complete translation of the Odyssey^ in 16 14, and a folio enti- 
tled The Whole Works of Homer in 1 61 6. To this list we must 
add, for the sake of completeness, The Croivn of all Homer'' s Works, 
containing the Batrachomyomachia, and the Hymns and Epigrams, 
published in 1624. 

On the death of Prince Henry, Nov. 12, 16 12, Chapman lost 
his place as sewer to the Prince of Wales, and Prince Charles re- 
fused to redeem his brother's promise of a reward for the translation 
of the Iliad or to grant Chapman's petition for **some poor copy- 
hold of the Princes land of ;!^40 rent, if any such I find." In his 
verses to **the immortal memory of Henry, Prince of Wales," 
Chapman complains bitterly that 

'' Not thy thrice sacred will 
Signed with thy death mooves any to fulfil 
Thy just bequests to me." 

Yet in spite of Charles's harsh treatment Chapman does not seem 
to have lost favour at court. He composed an elaborate masque per- 
formed by the gentlemen of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn 
at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth to the Palsgrave in 1 61 3, 
and in honour of the marriage of the king's favourite, Somerset, to 
the divorced Countess of Essex, he wrote an epithalamium entitled 
Andromeda Liberata, which seems to have given rise to some 
scandal. 3 

Somerset's fell in 161 6, however, put an end to Chapman's 
hopes of "future advance," for there seems to be no ground for 
Wood's hesitating statement that he was "a sworn servant either 
to King James I or his royal consort." In fact it is evident from 

1 A copy in the British Museum is assigned hesitatingly to 1610. See 
also Warton, History of English Poetry^ iv, 317. 

2 The first 12 books of the Odyssey seem to have been published sep- 
arately. See article on Chapman in Dictionary of National Biography. 

J This seems clear from the title of a later work by Chapman, j4 . . . 
Justification of a . . . maliciously interpreted poem entitled., Andromeda 
liberata, 1614. 



llBiograpl)^ xiii 

the lately discovered Chapman letters ^ that much of the poet's 
later life was passed in poverty. Yet according to Oldys ^ he was 
" much resorted to by young persons of parts as a poetical chron- 
icle ; but was very choice who he admitted to him, and preserved 
in his own person the dignity of poetry." 

In his last years Chapman seems once more to have turned his 
attention to the drama. In 1631 he published Caesar and Pom- 
pey, a Roman Tragedy, written long before, and now given to the 
world, perhaps under stress of poverty, in haste and without revi- 
sion. He seems also to have entered into friendly relations with 
Shirley, the favourite playwright of the court, and the youngest, as 
Chapman was the oldest, of the dramatists of the great period. The 
Ball was licensed as a play by Shirley in 1632, but Chapman's 
name appears with Shirley's on the title-page of the first edition, 
1639, and traces of Chapman's hand seem visible in the last act. 
Chabot,^ probably revised by Shirley for performance, was printed 
as the joint work of these poets in the same year. Chapman also 
made a thorough revision of Bussy D" Ambois, probably for a per- 
formance by the King's Servants, which served as the basis for the 
revised edition of that play in 1641. This revision Mr. Fleay takes 
to have been the poet's latest work.^ 

Chapman died May 12, 1634, and was buried in the church- 
yard of St. Giles in the Fields. His friend, Inigo Jones, erected a 
monument to his memory which is still standing. 

Wood speaks of Chapman, probably on the testimony of those 
who had known the poet in his later years, as " a person of most 
reverend aspect, religious and temperate, qualities rarely meeting in 
a poet." There is no proof of his acquaintance with Shakespeare, 

1 See Athenaeum^ March 2j, and April ij, 1901. 

2 MSS. notes in a copy of Langbaine's Dramatick Poets in the British 
Museum. 

I Licensed by Herbert, April 29, i6jy. 

4 There is no reason except the publisher's statements for assigning 
to Chapman Revenge for Honour (published in 1654), and many reasons 
against his authorship of this play. The anonymous T'wo Wise Men and 
All the rest Fools^ i6ig,was first ascribed to Chapman by the bookseller, 
Francis Kirkman, 1671, a mistake probably caused by the similarity of 
the name to that of All Fools. It cannot possibly be Chapman's. Two 
further plays entered as Chapman's in the Stationers'" Register, in 1660, 
The Torkshire Gentlewoman and her Son, and Fatal Love, were never 
published, and were destroyed in manuscript by Warburton's cook. 



xiv llBiograpl)^ 

but he was loved by Jonson,' and was on terms of friendship with 
Marlowe, Fletcher, Field, whom he calls his "loved son," /. e.^ 
scholar, and Shirley. His life covers practically the whole period 
of the Elizabethan drama. 

I Thefragmentof an invective against Jonson preserved in the Ashmole 
MSS. in the Bodleian seems to show that Chapman, possibly on account 
of his friendship for Inigo Jones, took sides against Jonson in the conflicts 
that clouded Ben's last years. 



ginttotiuction 



After the great names of Shakespeare, Spenser, and 
Marlowe, that of Chapman is perhaps the best known 
among Elizabethan poets. But Chapman's fame to-day- 
depends almost entirely upon his translation of the Iliad 
and Odyssey. That noble work in which for the first 
time ** deep-browed Homer ' ' spoke in English accents, 
although temporarily superseded by Pope's version, has 
never quite lost its hold upon English readers. Chap- 
man's dramas, on the other hand, although repeatedly- 
praised by his contemporaries, seem even in his day 
to have been little read ; of all the plays pubHshed 
under his name only two, Bussy D* Ambois and The 
Conspiracy and Tragedy of Biron^ ever attained a sec- 
ond edition. Dry den's slashing attack on the style of 
Bussy is well known, and in the century that followed 
Dry den. Chapman's plays seem to have been almost 
entirely forgotten. With the dawn of romantic criti- 
cism in England attention was drawn to their merits 
by Lamb and Hazlitt, but it was not until 1873 that 
a collected edition of the plays appeared in the form 
of a so-called facsimile reprint. Up to that time Chap- 
man's dramas, with the exception of an occasional 
reprint in various collections of old plays, were prac- 
tically inaccessible to English readers.* Lowell, for 

^ Eastivard Ho and The ff^idoiv's Tears were included in 
Dodsley's Old Plays in 1 744 ; A/I Fools was added in 1 780. Bussy y 



xvi 31ntrot)uctton 

example, when writing his interesting comment on 
Chapman in Conversations on Some of the Old English 
Poets (1845), had never seen a copy of The Con- 
spiracy and Tragedy of Biron. 

The reprint of 1873 ^^^ followed in 1874-5 by the 
first edition of the complete works of Chapman. It 
included three plays. Eastward Ho, Chabot, and The 
Bally which had been omitted in the reprint. The first 
two of these, though written in collaboration with other 
dramatists, have enough of Chapman to make them 
indispensable to any study of his work. 

With the appearance of these editions a systematic 
and critical study of Chapman's work was for the first 
time rendered possible, and Swinburne's admirable essay 
on the poetry and the dramas, which was prefixed to 
the third volume of the collected works, was the first 
fruit of such a study. Neither of these editions, how- 
ever, is satisfactory. The reprint is by no means a reli- 
able facsimile, especially in the matter of punctuation ; 
and the later edition, to which Mr. Shepherd put his 
name, modernises the spelling, leaves palpable errors of 
the old texts unaltered, and introduces needless changes 
into the text without the slightest notice of alteration. 
A critical edition of Chapman's plays in the light of 
modern scholarship still remains to be undertaken. 

Modern critics of Chapman have been inclined to 
pass over his comedies with but slight consideration, and 
to devote their main attention to his more serious plays. 
This is due, I fancy, to the old conception of Chapman as 

Monsieur D^ Oli-ve, and May Day were included in Dilke's Old 
Englnh Plays^ 18 14-15. 



31ntroDuctton xvii 

a poet rather than a dramatist. And for lofty poetry we 
must, no doubt, turn rather to his tragedies than his 
comedies. But if the first essential of drama be action 
rather than poetry, there can be as little doubt that as a 
playwright Chapman obtains his highest success in com- 
edy. It would not indeed be unfair to call him a tragic 
poet and a comic dramatist. In his tragedies the epic 
element too often outweighs the dramatic. The two 
Biron plays, for example, are rather a continuous epic 
poem than a drama, and their temporary success upon 
the stage must have been due to the interest of the 
audience in the subject rather than to their dramatic 
effectiveness. Again, the didactic element in the tra- 
gedies constantly interferes with the dramatic. Noble 
passages of gnomic verse are inlaid in the play with 
little regard for dramatic propriety or the development 
of the action. Chapman himself regarded this predom- 
inance of the didactic element as a virtue rather than 
a vice; ** material instruction, elegant and sententious 
excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary '* 
are, he asserts in the dedication to The Revetige of 
Bussy, **the soule, lims, and limits of an autenticall 
tragedy." Strictly interpreted this dogma would turn 
every tragedy into an essay on ethics, and Chapman's 
practice was fortunately more liberal than his theory. 
But it is plain to the student of his work that Chap- 
man's tragedies are marked by a constant struggle be- 
tween the author's theory and the demands of the 
contemporary stage, a conflict in which, as may be seen 
in The Revenge of Bussy, theory finally triumphed. 
It is not likely that in the composition of comedy Chap- 



xviii 31ntroUuction 

man took himself or his work so seriously. Yet even in 
his comedies it may be noted that whenever the action 
grows serious and approaches the bounds of tragedy, as 
in the last act of The Gentleman Usher y the gnomic 
element rises again into prominence and long passages 
of didactic and reflective verse retard the action of the 
play. 

In pure comedy, however. Chapman, unlike his 
friend and occasional collaborator Jonson, had no the- 
ories to realise, and free from the trammels of drama- 
tic dogma he was able in such work to develop fully 
his undoubted dramatic qualities. What these were a 
survey of his comedies will, perhaps, make clear. 

The Blind Beggar of Alexandria y Chapman's first 
extant play, is, as it stands, almost outside the pale of 
criticism. This, however, may not be altogether the au- 
thor's fault. There is reason to believe that its present 
form represents a stage version in which the original play 
has been cut, altered, and, possibly, in parts enlarged. In 
no other way can we account for the amazing fashion in 
which serious and even tragic motives appear only to 
disappear. I take it that The Blind Beggar was orig- 
inally a romantic drama, containing, along with a good 
deal of crude and rather boisterous farce, such tragic 
elements as the adulterous passion of the queen for 
Cleanthes, her murder of his wife, her implied murder 
of her own husband, the invasion of Egypt by the 
Asian kings, and their overthrow by the hero. In the 
present form of the play we catch only a fleeting 
glimpse of these motives ; but it is impossible, I think, 
that Chapman should have allowed the tragic figure of 



JIntroDuction xix 

the queen to drop out of the play altogether without 
giving us the slightest intimation of her fate. Such an 
omission savours rather of the recklessness of some 
stage manager than of the negligence even of a novice 
in the drama. It is probable that the play as first 
written w^as too long for convenient presentation, and 
that in adapting it for the stage the reviser had an 
eye rather upon contemporary taste than on the rules 
of dramatic construction. We know from Henslowe's 
Diary that The Blind Beggar ^ — presumably in its pre- 
sent form — was a very successful play, and its success 
was probably due to the comic element that still remains 
rather than to the tragic that has so ruthlessly been cut 
away. 

It is, perhaps, a little difficult for us to grasp the 
causes of the success of such a play. The story is 
absurd, the characterisation is practically nil, and the 
dialogue is rather coarse than witty. On the other 
hand, the action never flags, there is an abundance of 
comic and farcical incident, and the diction, passing 
easily from fluent verse to racy prose and back again, 
is quite free from Chapman's common faults of in- 
volved expression and obscurity. The part of the hero 
in his fourfold personaHty was no doubt a grateful role 
for some popular actor, and I am inclined to think that 
this part has been padded by some other hand than 
that of the author. 

I have dwelt at some length upon this first play of 
Chapman's, because I believe that we may discern in 
it, with all its imperfections and absurdities, the germ 
* For the dates of its performances see footnote to p. 1 1 7. 



XX 3ItttroDuction 

of Chapman's conception of comedy. This, as will 
be abundantly shown in the consideration of his later 
work, consists not so much in witty dialogue after the 
fashion of Lyly, or humorous characterisation in the 
manner of Shakespeare, as in action, particularly in 
the invention and elaboration of amusing situations. 
Chapman was not a master of construction, but in the 
execution of single scenes he is at times hardly sur- 
passed by Shakespeare himself. 

The text of Chapman's second comedy. An Hu- 
morous Day^ s Mirthy is so corrupt, and the stage-direc- 
tions are so infrequent and confusing, that it is ex- 
tremely difficult to follow the story. Here, too, we 
probably have to deal with a text that was altered and 
published without the author's supervision. None the 
less we can see in this play a distinct advance in 
Chapman's art. It is a pure comedy, unmixed with 
such tragic elements as appear in The Blind Beggar, 
The dialogue shows in its frequent puns and wit-com- 
bats the influence of Lyly, and there is an anticipa- 
tion of Jonson's work in the portrayal of various 
"humours," incarnate in the female puritan, the jeal- 
ous husband, the foolish courtier, and the melancholy 
gentleman. But none of these figures have the pre- 
cision of outline or dramatic effectiveness of Jonson's 
characters, and, on the whole, the play may be pro- 
nounced a comedy of intrigue revolving about one cen- 
tral figure. Chapman's weakness in plot construction is 
very evident here where, so far as is known, he was 
drawing on his own invention for the story. The main 
thread of the plot is constantly obscured by superfluous 



iflntroUuction xxi 

incident, or buried under unnecessary dialogue. But 
it is never quite broken, and all the motives of the play 
find in the end their fit solution. Chapman had, it 
seems, by this time clarified his conception of comedy, 
although he was not yet sure enough of hand to realise 
it in actual composition. 

The gap between An Humorous Day' s Mirth and 
Chapman's next surviving play is immense. Mr. 
Swinburne has rightly pronounced All Fools ** one of 
the most faultless examples of high comedy in the 
whole rich field of our Elizabethan drama. ' ' Possibly, 
however, this gap may seem to us wider than in reality 
it was ; for All Foolsy originally written for Henslowe 
in 1599, ^^'^5 ^^^ °^y revised for a later production 
at Blackfriars, but was, if we may trust the testi- 
mony of the dedication,^ published by the author him- 
self to forestall the appearance of a pirated edition, 
** patcht with others wit." How great a difference 
this supervision on the part of an author made in the 
printed version of a play only those can rightly esti- 
mate who have struggled in vain to catch the play- 
wright's plan in such a botcht-up piece of work, for 
example, as The Blind Beggar. All Fools appears to 
have been the first play published by the author him- 
self, and in spite of an occasional misprint or wrong 
assignment of speeches it may be read with delight even 
in the old quarto of 1605. 

It is impossible to determine with any degree of 
precision what changes were made when this play 
was revised. I fancy that they consisted in polishing 

^ See Appendix^ p. 139. 



xxii 3lntroDuction 

the poetry, sharpening the dialogue, and, probably, 
in the addition of several prose orations somewhat after 
the manner of Lyly, a manner which would especially 
delight the cultivated audience of the Blackfriars Thea- 
tre. The main plot and the characters must have been 
very much the same in both versions, since plot and 
characters aUke are drawn directly from known sources. 
I shall discuss the relation of All Fools to the Heau- 
tontimorumenos and the Adelphi of Terence at a later 
point in this introduction. It will be sufficient to say 
here that Chapman's sources gave him in this case ex- 
actly what he most needed, a plot carefully involved 
and clearly worked out, and typical characters, limited 
in depth but sharply defined. His own genius for ro- 
mantic poetry, his talent for vigorous dialogue, and 
his dexterity in the invention and handling of comic 
situation did the rest. Apart from certain excrescences 
in speech and incident, and a slight weakness of treat- 
ment in the solution. All Fools is the most nearly per- 
fect of Chapman's plays. 

How much All Fools owes to its sources we can 
best realise when we turn to what was probably Chap- 
man's next succeeding comedy. The source of May 
Day, long unknown to Chapman's commentators, has 
been clearly shown by Stiefel (^Shakespeare Jahrbuch, 
vol. 35) to be the Alessandro of the Italian poet, 
A. Piccolomini. In fact it would hardly be unfair 
to call May Day an adaptation of the Italian play, 
for Chapman has retained the three intrigues, and 
most of the characters, of his source. Yet he has been 
by no means a mere translator ; he has discarded cer- 



SlntroDuction xxiii 

tain superfluous figures, added others, and transformed 
the stock braggadocio of Italian comedy into a typic- 
ally Elizabethan figure. And his advance in power 
of dramatic construction is shown by the fact that he 
has bound the severed intrigues of the Italian play 
closely together in the character of Lodovico, whose 
restless energy, Uke Lemot's in An Humorous Day* s 
Mirthy leads him to take an active part in them all, 
and thus to serve as the mainspring of the whole action. 

Yet Ma-y Day is by no means one of the best of 
Chapman's comedies. Based as it is upon an Italian 
comedy of intrigue, the interest lies wholly in the ac- 
tion, and this is so hurried and involved as to perplex 
and weary the reader. It is impossible to take any 
lively interest in the characters, for the reason, I sup- 
pose, that these stock figures of Italian comedy were 
incapable of the humanising and vitalising treatment 
which Terence, and Chapman after him, succeeded in 
applying to the types of the New Comedy. And the 
play as a whole quite lacks the poetry and the breath 
of romance which illuminates and enlivens All Fools, 
The Gentleman Usher y and Monsieur D^ Olive, The 
prose dialogue is capital, but verse is almost wholly 
absent. In this respect, also, though superior in con- 
struction. May Day closely resembles An Humorous 
Day* s Mir thy — another reason for fixing its date be- 
fore, not after. Chapman's best romantic comedies. 

If Sir Giles Goosecap was written by Chapman 
about 1 60 1 or 1602, as I have tried to show else- 
where,^ it would seem at first glance to denote a dis- 

' The Authorship of Sir Gyles Goosecappe : Modern Philology y 
July, 1906. 



xxiv 31ntroDuction 

tinct relapse both in Chapman's conception of comedy 
and in his power of execution, for it is markedly in- 
ferior in both these qualities to All Fools and May 
Day. It seems to have been one of Chapman's first 
plays for the Children of the Chapel, then acting at 
Blackfriars. And in his attempt to hit the taste of 
this audience and working, as it seems, without a 
model before him, the author came largely under the 
influence of Jonson, then the leading play wright for this 
company. The satiric description, in Act i, sc. i, of 
dramatis fersonae not yet upon the stage is a palpable 
borrowing of one of Jonson' s well-known devices, and 
if Mr. Fleay is right in his conjecture that the various 
knights who appear in the play are personal carica- 
tures, we should have another marked imitation of 
Jonson. More interesting, however, in relation to 
Chapman's later development is the appearance in Sir 
Giles for the first time of a romantic love-story of a 
high and serious type, founded, as Professor Kittredge 
has shown,' upon Chaucer's Troilus and Cryseide. 
The scenes which deal with this theme are written for 
the most part in verse, studded with passages of lofty, 
but, at times, somewhat obscure poetry. As a whole 
Sir Giles is not a play of which the author had reason 
to be proud, and it may be for this reason that Chap- 
man never owned it ; but these love-scenes might well 
be the prototype of some of his finest work in The 
Gentleman Usher and Monsieur U Olive. 

The Gentleman Usher marks the triumph of poetic 
and romantic comedy in Chapman's work. Mr. Swin- 

^ Journal of Germanic Philology^ vol, 2, pp. 7-13. 



31ntroDuction xxv 

burne notes that this play is ** distinguished from all 
Chapman's other works by the serious grace and sweet- 
ness of the love-scenes, and the higher tone of femi- 
nine character and masculine regard which is sustained 
throughout the graver passages." A more detailed ex- 
amination of the play will be made later. It is enough 
to say here that Chapman nowhere else appears more 
original, or after the action has once started more 
completely in sympathy with and master of his subject. 
The romantic love-story — a theme rather in the vein 
of Fletcher than of earlier dramatists — is lightened and 
diversified by comic scenes ranging from frank buf- 
foonery and gross farce to little masterpieces of high 
comedy. In the figure of Bassiolo Chapman created 
a character at once more real and more genuinely hu- 
morous than any that he had been hitherto able to con- 
ceive. But even in the scenes which are dominated 
by this figure the comic entertainment is furnished not 
so much by the revelation of his character as by the 
exquisitely ridiculous situations in which he is in- 
volved. Here as elsewhere Chapman holds to the 
necessity of action and situation in comedy. 

In Monsieur D^ Olive we find Chapman's talents as 
a comic and a romantic poet combined, but by no 
means so successfully blended as in The Gentleman 
Usher. The play is composed of two distinct plots 
which have only the slightest connection with each 
other. The first deals with a purely romantic theme ; 
the second with the gulling of Monsieur D' Olive, the 
character who gives his name to the play. The ar- 
rangement seems to me somewhat mechanical; each 



xxvi 31ntroliuction 

act falls into two scenes, and, with the exception of 
the last scene of the play, where an unsuccessful at- 
tempt is made to combine the two plots in a common 
denouement, the first scene regularly deals with the 
romantic story, the second with the comic underplot. 
And as Swinburne has pointed out, ** the main interest 
is more and more thrust aside * ' as the play goes on, 
until at the close **it is fairly hustled into a corner.'* 
Curiously enough, considering Chapman's earlier work, 
the underplot is notably deficient in action. The trick 
which the courtiers play upon D' Olive is far from fur- 
nishing sufficient material for a comic action, and as a 
matter of fact the original underplot comes to an end in 
the fourth act, where a new intrigue has to be devised 
to bring its main figure once more before the public 
and include him in the final solution of the play. On 
the other hand, the figure of Monsieur D' Olive is Chap- 
man's most elaborate piece of characterisation. Half- 
wit, half-gull, and wholly Elizabethan in his mingled 
good nature, vanity, and volubility, he is one of the 
most diverting figures in the whole range of contem- 
porary comedy. In a sense he belongs to the humorous 
characters which Jonson had introduced to the Eliza- 
bethan stage, but although he was doubtless meant as 
a satiric portrait of the giddy-pated, fortune-hunting 
courtiers who had flocked in their hundreds to wel- 
come the accession of James I, there is not the slightest 
trace of that earnestness, not to say bitterness, of moral 
reprobation which Jonson would have thrown into his 
delineation of such a figure. The influence of Jonson 
may be felt also, I believe, in the racy, idiomatic 



31ntroDuction xxvii 

prose in which D' Olive betrays his follies to a de- 
lighted world. It is unfortunate that Jonson's influence 
over his friend did not extend farther and lead him to 
devise a proper plot in which to set this well-drawn 
character. Only an analysis of the comic scenes of 
Monsieur D^ Olive will reveal their utter emptiness 
of action, and this is the more remarkable, since, as 
I have pointed out, it is as a rule in action and incident 
that Chapman's comic force consists. One can only 
conjecture that the influence of Jonson's comedy of 
humours, and possibly the stage success of Bassiolo in 
The Gentleman Usher, may have induced Chapman 
to compose this underplot which relies for effect solely 
upon a humorous character study. 

The influence of Jonson is, of course, even more 
apparent in Eastward Hoy where Chapman was collab- 
orating with Jonson and Marston. An exact assign- 
ment of the scenes of this play has not yet been made, 
except by Mr. Fleay, ^ who, without giving any reason 
for his opinion, ascribes Acts i-ii, i, to Marston, 
Acts II, ii-iv, i, to Chapman, and the conclusion 
to Jonson. That Chapman wrote the part here as- 
signed to him no student of his comedies can doubt. 
The only question is whether he did not write consid- 
erably more. My own opinion, after a repeated read- 
ing of the play, would be that Jonson furnished the 
plot. Chapman wrote practically the whole play, and 
Marston touched it up here and there with satire on 
the Scotch and on King James's knights, and, in Swin- 
burne's phrase, ** dropped one or two momentary 
* Chronicle of the English Drama, vol. 2, p. 8 1. 



xxviii 31ntroUuction 

indecencies to attest his passage. ' ' Such an assignment 
would account at once for the admirable construction 
and precise characterisation of the play, for its genial 
and sunny temper far more characteristic of Chapman 
than of either of his fellows, and for the ease and nat- 
uralness of the general conduct of the action. ^ 

Assuming, as I think we are justified in doing, that 
a very considerable portion of this excellent comedy 
belongs, so far at least as the actual composition goes, 
to Chapman, we find him here engaged on a realistic 
comedy of contemporary English life akin to Jonson*s 
Every Man in his Humour and Dekker's Shoemaker^ s 
Holiday ; and even if the credit of the construction and 
the characterisation belong, as they probably do, to 
Jonson, it is hard to find due terms of praise for Chap- 
man's admirable execution. Particularly remarkable for 
their comic force are the scenes in which Gertrude sets 
out in her coach amid the plaudits of admiring neigh- 
bours to ** dress up" that castle in the air which she 
fancies she has won by marriage, and the later scene, 
where stranded in her poor garret she clings desper- 
ately to her shreds of nobility and sadly contrasts the 
behaviour of her own knight with that of the Knight of 
the Sun or Palmerin of England. Eminently characteris- 
tic of Chapman's manner of letting the audience into the 

* Bearing in mind Chapman's tendency to repeat himself, I would 
call attention to the similarity of Gertrude's behaviour in i, ii (a 
scene assigned by Mr. Fleay to Marston), to that of Elimine in The 
Blind Beggar of Alexandria (Chapman's Dramatic Works^ vol. I, 
pp. 27-28), and to the still more striking similarity between the 
behaviour of Security in iii, ii, and in, iii, and that of Gostanzo 
toward Rinaldoand Marc. Antonio in All Fools (iii, i, and iv, i). 



^Introduction xxix 

secret of a comic situation is the way in which Security is 
induced to play the go-between for his own wife and the 
gay Sir Petronel ; and Chapman's love of farcical stage 
effect is never more happily displayed than in the 
scene where the shipwrecked Security in dripping gown 
and nightcap is rebuked by his spouse for spending the 
night abroad at taverns. So successful indeed in con- 
ception, construction, and detailed execution is this 
lively comedy that one can only regret that Chapman 
and Jonson did not form a literary partnership as close 
and lasting as that of Beaumont and Fletcher. 

Chapman's last comedy. The Widow^ s Tears y 
printed in 1612, but probably written much earlier,^ 
has never received the attention it deserves. Possibly its 
brutally cynical tone toward women has disgusted the 
commentators, but it is certainly permitted a comic writer 
to take this tone. Congreve, for example, is none 
the less one of the greatest of English comic dramatists 
because of his utter disbelief in women's vows and 
women's tears. And if a dramatist takes for his theme 
the story of the Ephesian matron as told by Petronius, 
it is hard to see what other tone he could adopt. As 
a matter of fact. The Widow^ s Tears is written with 
amazing force and sparkles with cynical humour. The 
character of Tharsalio, in particular, who wins his goal 
by sheer audacity, and whose rooted distrust of woman- 
kind is based upon his own unsavoury experiences, is one 
that Fletcher might have envied. The adaptation of 
the classic story to a dramatic form is, up to a certain 

I Fleay, Chronicle of the English Drama, vol. I, p. 61, dates it 
ca. 1605. 



XXX 3|ntroDuctton 

point, a marvel of ingenuity, and Chapman's substitu- 
tion of the disguised husband for the stranger of the 
Petronian tale as the widow's tempter — an uncon- 
scious reversion to the earlier Oriental version ^ of the 
story — is a true stroke of dramatic genius. It points 
directly to the only proper solution of the plot, the 
widow's pretended recognition of her husband's disguise 
and her imposition upon him of this belief by dint of 
feminine audacity and voluble reiteration. But the 
actual solution in the drama is perhaps the most hope- 
less muddle in Elizabethan comedy. It is quite impos- 
sible to make out what effect Cynthia's declaration 
that she had recognised her husband has upon the 
wretched man. Nor can we at all accept the whis- 
pered mediation of Tharsalio's wife as a proper substi- 
tute for the legitimate conclusion of the play, an eclair- 
cissement between husband and wife and a restitution 
of the lady to her old position in her husband's con- 
fidence on the basis of his belief in her protestations. 
The truth seems to be that Chapman, left without a 
clue for such a solution in the source he used, and 
possibly pressed for time in preparing his drama for the 
stage, simply evaded the solution altogether, and sub- 
stituted for it a scene of broad farce where a fooHsh 
magistrate of the well-known Elizabethan type talks 
a flood of nonsense in the manner of Dogberry and 
Verges. Chapman at his best was no master of con- 
struction, but none of his dramas exhibits so hopelessly 
an inept conclusion as The Widow^ s Tears. 

* See Die treulose TVittivt und ihre Wanderung durch die Welt- 
litteratuTy Ed. Griesbach, Stuttgart, 1877. 



31ntro0uction xxxi 

The Bally licensed in 1632, was printed five years 
after Chapman's death as the joint work of Chapman 
and Shirley. That the play as a whole belongs to 
Shirley ' there cannot be the slightest doubt. It is, how- 
ever, possible that one or two of the passages which 
the licenser forced Shirley to omit were filled up by 
Chapman, and Freshwater' s account of his travels in 
V, i, in its vigorous prose and farcical jumble of absurd- 
ities is distinctly reminiscent of Chapman's style. 

The foregoing survey of Chapman's comedies has, 
perhaps, made it possible to attempt an estimate of his 
gifts and limitations as a comic dramatist, and the re- 
lation in which he stood to his contemporary labourers 
in this field. Perhaps the most noticeable defect of 
Chapman is his want of constructive abihty. On 
the whole more nearly allied to Jonson than to any 
other Elizabethan poet, not only by the circumstances 
of his life but by his scholarly acquirements and the 
general temper of his mind, he quite lacks Jonson' s 
architectonic genius. With only one or two exceptions 
Chapman's plays are ill-planned and badly propor- 
tioned ; and these exceptions. All Fools ^ Eastward 
Hoy and, perhaps. May Day, are all cases where, so 
far as plot and structure are concerned. Chapman 
was working upon models furnished him by an elder, 
or, in one case, by a contemporary dramatist. That 
this defect was inherent and not merely due to lack 
of acquaintance with the requirements of the stage 

' See Fleay, Chronicle of the English Drama ^ vol. 2, pp. 238- 
2395 Ward, English Dramatic Literature^ vol. 3, p. 107; Koeppel, 
Siuellen und For so hungen, Heft 82, sub The Ball. 



xxxii 3|ntrotiuction 

is shown by the appearance of the grave faults that 
have been pointed out in such late w^ork as Monsieur 
D* Olive and The Widow^ s Tears. That Chapman 
w^as not ignorant of stage effect is shown by numerous 
scenes of high comic force whose effectiveness could 
only be heightened by actual representation. But he 
seems from the beginning to have lacked the ability to 
plan and execute a play as a well-proportioned whole. 
Chapman, it must fiirther be confessed, is no great 
master of characterisation. He seems to have lacked 
almost entirely the range and depth of human sympa- 
thy which enabled men such as Dekker and Heywood, 
certainly his inferiors in intellectual ability, to create 
characters that still retain the breath of life with which 
these poets endowed them. Chapman is too often in- 
clined to crowd his stage with puppet-like figures only 
slightly differentiated from each other and quite devoid 
of Hfe. This fault is particularly noticeable in his ear- 
lier work. It is difficult for the reader, it must have 
been quite impossible for the spectator, to keep in mind 
the mob of gentlemen who crowd the boards in An 
Humorous Daf s Mirth and May Day. And if in the 
latter case the fault was originally that of the Italian dra- 
matist whose work Chapman is adapting, it is significant 
that the English poet has rather added to than dimin- 
ished Piccolomini's swollen list of dramatis personae. 
Under the influence of his study of Latin comedy and 
guided, perhaps, by the example of Jonson, Chapman 
came in time to learn the value of restraint in this re- 
spect and the need of distinguishing between his figures. 
He is most generally successful, I think, when working 



^Introduction xxxiii 

on stock types, such as those furnished by Latin comedy, 
as in All Fools ^ and in such ** humorous " figures as 
the swaggering captain in May Day, the jealous hus- 
band in All Fools, or that " true map of a gull " who 
gives his name to Monsieur /)' Olive. But he is not 
altogether unsuccessful in the sphere of romantic com- 
edy ; Clarence, the poet-lover, and his mistress, Eu- 
genia, in Sir Giles Goosecap, Vincentio and his friend 
Strozza in The Gentleman Usher, are distinctly con- 
ceived and attractively presented. Margaret, the hero- 
ine of the latter play, is one of the most delightful girls 
outside the plays of Shakespeare ; and the audacity, 
ready wit, and quenchless good-humour of Tharsalio in 
The Widow* s Tears, raise him distinctly above the 
stock figure of the impudent gentleman adventurer. 

The general impression left by a repeated and con- 
secutive reading of Chapman's comedies is one of lively 
and vigorous comic force. This is due, in the main, 
I believe, to the abundance of action that characterises 
these plays. With the possible exception of Sir Giles 
Goosecap, the action of Chapman's comedies calls 
rather for pruning than for reenforcement ; and this is 
the more notable since his tragedies are as a rule 
very deficient in action. I take it that the theory of 
dramatic composition which checked Chapman's hand 
in the composition of his graver works was cast aside 
when he turned to comedy ; and his early apprentice- 
ship to Henslowe must have taught him that a lively 
bustling plot with plenty of amusing incident would 
cover a multitude of sins. Accordingly he was often 
careless of construction, wasted little time in psycho- 



xxxiv 3(|ntroliuction 

logical analysis of character, and as a rule seldom de- 
layed the action to display his wit. 

It is quite in keeping with this abundant action that 
Chapman's humour should be one of incident and situ- 
ation rather than of character and dialogue. It ranges 
all the way from the clownery of such figures as Sir Giles 
and Pogio, through the broad farce of certain scenes 
in The Blind Beggar y or the intoxication of Corteza, 
to genuine specimens of high comedy in All Fools 
and The Gentleman Usher. Chapman is, I think, 
specially a master of ludicrous situation. I know few 
scenes in any literature more essentially comic in the 
mere situation than those in which Valerio's mock re- 
pentance obtains his father's feigned forgiveness, or 
Bassiolo's gulled importunity wins from the assumed 
prudery of Margaret the favour of a letter to her lover. 
It is in scenes like these that Chapman's comic genius 
appears at its highest. We feel that he himself per- 
ceives the value of the situation, elaborates it, and wrests 
from it all of comic that it contains. And Chapman 
has the special merit in his comedy of keeping the 
audience always in touch with the action. [He makes 
little or no use of the element of surprise, which is so 
prominent a feature of Fletcherian and later comedy. 
No matter how completely the characters in the action 
may be gulled, the reader always comprehends the cause 
and looks forward to the consequence, and so obtains 
a double gust from the situation. 

A word should be said in passing of Chapman's 
style as a comic dramatist. Like most of the Eliza- 
bethans proper he is ambidextrous and uses prose or 



31ntroDuctlon xxxv 

verse as the occasion demands. In blank verse he was, 
as his first play shows, originally a student of Mar- 
lowe, but he soon worked out a style of his own. In 
tragedy this was elaborate, elevated, sententious, and 
at times turgid and obscure. In comedy on the other 
hand it is, to quote Swinburne's happy phrase, ** limpid 
and luminous as running water," rising at times to 
heights of impassioned poetry, and jinking easily again 
to familiar and fluent dialogue. , No poet before 
Fletcher, I believe, was able to impart to blank verse 
so easy and conversational a tone,. 

Chapman's prose, like that of most of his contempo- 
raries, was strongly coloured by the influence of Lyly. 
This is particularly noticeable in the set speeches of 
All Fools and Monsieur D' Olive. Where Chapman 
escapes from this influence and is content to speak Hke 
a man of this world, his prose is racy and vigorous, 
simpler, I think, and more idiomatic than that of Jon- 
son, more forcible and efi^ective than that of any other 
of his contemporaries, with the one exception of Shake- 
speare. 

II 

The main source of All Foolsy as was pointed out 
by Langbaine, is the Heautontimorumenos of Terence. 
A second source of considerable importance in the 
characterisation and final solution of Chapman's play 
has recently been pointed out in the Adelphi of Ter- 
ence. ^ 

' By Miss Woodbridge in The Journal of Germanic Fhilology^ 
vol. I, p. 338 ssq.5 and independently and more fully in a paper 



xxxvi 31ntroDuction 

It is not without interest to note that in the very- 
year that Chapman composed All Fools for Henslowe's 
company, Ben Jonson wrote The Case is Altered^ 
Hke Chapman's play a contamination of two Latin 
comedies, in this case the Captwi and Aulularia of 
Plautus. Considering the close personal relations that 
existed between Chapman and Jonson at this time, one 
is almost forced to believe that the appearance of these 
plays represents a conscious attempt on the part of the 
two scholarly dramatists to domesticate Latin comedy 
upon the Elizabethan stage ; and the fact that in both 
cases two Ladn plays were combined to make a single 
English one/goes to show that both dramatists consid- 
ered the plot and incident of a Latin comedy too slight 
and scanty to hold the attention of an Elizabethan 
audience/ 

It is no injustice to the fame of Jonson to say that 
of these two attempts Chapman's is distinctly the 
superior. The Case is Altered adheres almost slavishly 
to its originals, and the two plots are rather placed in 
juxtaposition than blended into one harmonious whole. 
All Foolsy on the other hand, seems to me almost a 
perfect model for work of this sort. Chapman has 
treated his originals with a free hand, and while retain- 
ing the main structure and numerous incidents and 
even at times translating almost directly from the Latin, 
he has cut away and added at discretion, and has 
wholly modernised the spirit of the play. I have 
pointed out in the Notes many particular instances 

read before the English Seminary, at Princeton, by C. W. Kennedy, 
in 1904. 



3(|utroDuction xxxvii 

where Chapman either adheres to or deviates from his 
originals. Certain changes which he has made in the 
dramatis personae and their effect upon the general tone 
of the play are, however, well worth noting. Bacchis, 
the courtesan of the Heautontimorumenos, has become 
Gratiana, the secret wife of the hero ; Antiphila, the 
daughter of Chremes, who had been exposed as an 
infant and by mere accident restored to her parents, 
is represented by Bellanora, who has never left her 
father's house. In like fashion the intriguing slave, 
Syrus, has been transformed into a younger brother of 
the hero, a quick-witted, roguish ** clerk of Padua." 
With these changes the whole atmosphere of the New 
Comedy, an atmosphere of courtesans, exposed infants, 
and rascally slaves, disappears, and the play becomes 
at once wholly modern, v This transformation is aided 
also by the sub-plot of Cornelio's jealousy, apparently 
Chapman's own invention, and distinctly Elizabethan 
rather than classical in spirit^/ 

Chapman's skill is furtKer seen in his omission of 
the ** self- torturing ' ' motive of the play which he chose 
for the basis of his plot and his substitution for it of 
the strong contrast in character between the two fa- 
thers, which he found in the Adelphi. The whole 
intrigue of All Fools turns upon the harsh character 
of Gostanzo, who corresponds to Demea in the 
Adelphiy and upon his son's natural unwillingness to 
confess to him his secret marriage until he has made 
sure beforehand of forgiveness. It is not too much, 
indeed, to say that the characterisation and mutual re- 
lations of the dramatis personae of All Fools find their 



xxxviii introduction 

source rather in the Adelphi than in the Heauton- 
timorumenos. 

In one respect, indeed, the Adelphi has influenced 
the structure o^ All Fools and, perhaps, not altogether 
to its advantage. Swinburne has noted as the one 
slight blemish of the EngHsh play ** that the final scene 
of discovery ... is somewhat hurriedly despatched, 
with too rapid a change of character and readjustment 
of relations." Inasmuch as Chapman had transformed 
the courtesan of the Heautontimorumenos into the secret 
wife of All Foolsy it was of course impossible that the 
solution of the Latin play, in which Bacchis is dis- 
missed and her lover consents to marry a neighbour's 
daughter, should be retained. For this solution Chap- 
man has substituted that of the Adelphi, where the 
stern father suddenly becomes mild, consents to the 
marriage of his elder son with a poor girl, and allows 
the younger to retain his mistress. But while Terence 
has carefully motivated this change of front. Chapman 
introduces it suddenly and without warning. It is 
possible, indeed, to explain Gostanzo's transformation 
in the last scene on the hypothesis that he realises that 
his anger is fruitless and wisely resolves to make the 
best of what is after all not so bad a business. Yet even 
with this explanation the fact remains that Gostanzo's 
change of mind is rather dramatically admissible than 
psychologically true.' 

* Another objection urged by Professor Koeppel (Snellen und 
Forschungen, 1897) to the construction of J// Fools seems to me to 
lack real weight. I have dealt with this objection in a note on the 
passage (in, i, 83-84). 



3|nttoDuction xxxix 

After all it is, of course, ii^dle to look for depth of 
characterisation and psychological truth in a play like 
All Fools. I The characters, borrowed directly from 
Latin cortiedy, are rather types than distinct and well- 
rounded individuals. We have here the familiar figures 
of the New Comedy, the stern father, the indulgent 
father, the riotous son, and the witty intriguer who sets 
the action going. It is, I think, greatly to Chapman's 
credit that, while adopting these threadbare types, he 
has contrived to make them so real and freshly enter- 
taining. And he has, moreover, succeeded in throw- 
ing about these stock figures and this old-world intrigue 
a mingled atmosphere of Elizabethan realism and 
romance. Valerie's secret marriage and Fortunio's 
secret love give a romantic interest to All Fools which i 
is quite lacking in its prototypes. And the repeated 
touches of realism, the adventure of Valerio with the 
bailiffs, his vanity in his courtly accomplishments, and 
the final scene in the Half Moon Tavern, with its 
accompaniment of dice, tobacco, a ** noise " of music, 
and the pledging of healths, complete the transforma- 
tion of the play of Terence into a modern comedy of 
intrigue and of manners. 

The Gentleman Usher presents so remarkable a con- 
trast to All Fools as to give us a striking impression of 
Chapman's range and versatility as a comic dramatist. 
The construction is far more loose and irregular, the 
characterisation more individual and human, the poetry 
more fervent and impassioned, and the prevailing interest 
is shifted from a series of amusing intrigues to a tender 
and romantic love-story. Chapman's women are as a 



xi BltttroUuttion 

rule not particularly attractive figures ; the young 
wives of All Fools are little more than puppets ; the 
widows of his last comedy are, to put it mildly, no 
better than they should be. But the matron and the 
maid in The Gentleman Usher — Cynanche, the perfect 
helpmate, and Margaret, the merry, modest, and devoted 
sweetheart — are alone sufficient to redeem Chapman 
from the charge of having been consistently cynical 
in his attitude toward women. 

No source has yet been discovered for the story of 
The Gentleman Usher. I have shown elsewhere that 
certain characters and incidents seem to have been taken 
over from Chapman's earlier play. Sir Giles Goosecap.^ 
These, however, are wholly subordinate and do not 
affect the main story. I fancy that this may yet be 
discovered in some French or Italian novel. Chapman 
was by no means strong in invention, and I am in- 
clined to believe him incapable of creating a story so 
simple, straightforward, and well-balanced as that of 
Vincentio and Margaret. On the other hand, if the 
story had already been dramatised. Chapman, who in 
All Fools and May Day had shown himself so capable 
an adapter, would hardly have floundered and stumbled 
through two whole acts before getting under way. 

It is to this long delay in starting the action that I 
am inclined to attribute, in part at least, the strange 
neglect which has overtaken this most delightful of 
Chapman's comedies. It requires no litde patience in- 
deed to push resolutely through the first two acts, 

' The Authorship of Sir Gyles Goosecappe^ Modern Philology^ 
July, 1906. 



3IntroDuction xli 

which are at once notably deficient in the central in- 
terest and filled to overflowing with incidental matter, 
the clowneries of Pogio, the pedantries of Sarpego, 
and the disgusting farce of Corteza's drunkenness — 
to say nothing of the various masks and shows which, 
however diverting they may have been to a contem- 
porary audience, have, in the lapse of time, become 
stale and flat. But the reader who has the courage to 
go on will reap a large reward. From the time the 
action is properly started at the beginning of Act in, 
it runs along swiftly and smoothly with sparkling inter- 
change of comedy and romance. In the last act, in- 
deed, it assumes a serious and almost tragic tone, which 
at the very close of the play, when the fortunes of the 
lovers have touched the nadir, is dissipated by the ap- 
pearance of a wonder-working physician who heals 
their wounds and joins their hands. The cruel father 
is reconciled to the match, the intriguing enemy is ex- 
posed and banished, and the play ends as a romantic 
comedy should do with the sound of wedding-bells. 
No other of Chapman's comedies has, I think, so 
well worked out and satisfactory a conclusion. And 
this is in large measure because the solution, with its 
miraculous cure of Strozza, and its deus ex machina in 
the person of Benivemus, harmonises admirably with 
the romantic tone of the play. It speaks well for 
Chapman's judgement and discrimination as an artist 
that such a facile and, as it were, supernatural solution 
of a tangled plot, which appears nowhere else in his 
work, should have been admitted here where alone it is 
in keeping. 



xlii 31ntroDuction 

As is eminently fitting in a romantic comedy, the 
characterisation in The Gentleman Usher is at once 
more individual and more interesting than in All Fools. 
Chapman's grasp of character and firmness of touch is 
seen even in such minor parts as those of Pogio, Al- 
phonso, Corteza, and Cynanche. The main interest 
centres, naturally, in the figures of the lovers, their 
constant friend, Strozza, and their gull and go-be- 
tv^een, Bassiolo. Vincentio is slightly but surely 
draw^n. Without any attempt at elaborate analysis 
Chapman has here given us a w^holly satisfactory por- 
trait of a romantic young lover, good-tempered, high- 
spirited, and devoted to his mistress. Strozza, too, is 
a distinctly human figure, far above the mere stock 
confident of comedy. Of Margaret's charm I have 
already spoken, but it is hard to pass over in silence the 
quaUties that go to constitute that charm, the modesty 
with which she repels the advances of the Duke, the 
gaiety with which she befools Bassiolo, the heart-broken 
sorrow for the supposed loss of her lover, and the 
fine unselfishness with which she rejects her lover's 
offer to wed her after **her beauty's sacrifice." Above 
all, in the noble passage where she and the Prince 
exchange vows and bind themselves in a marriage cere- 
mony of their own devising, the passionate purity of her 
mind banishes from the scene the faintest suspicion of 
a baser motive. One trembles to think how such a situ- 
ation would have been treated by Fletcher. But the 
heroine of Chapman's play is more nearly akin to Juliet 
than to any female figure that Fletcher was ever able to 
conceive. 



3(|ntrot)uction xliii 

The character of Bassiolo also demands a word, the 
more so because Swinburne has passed him over in si- 
lence, and Professor Ward, as well as Professor Koep- 
pel, appears to regard him merely as an unsuccessful 
imitation of Malvolio. Such a judgement, I am bound 
to say, seems to me quite unsatisfactory. It is quite pos- 
sible that the success of Malvolio upon the stage may 
have suggested to Chapman, writing a few years after 
the first performance of Twelfth Night, the notion of 
trying his hand upon the figure of a conceited gentle- 
man usher. But the similarity between the two figures 
lies wholly upon the surface. Both occupy the same 
position in the world, and both are tricked into believ- 
ing that their merits have won for them a favour which 
will advance them above this rank. Here, however, 
the likeness ends. At heart Malvolio is a bad-tempered 
peacock, Bassiolo a good-natured goose. There is not 
a trace in Chapman's figure of the soured Puritanism 
which leads Malvolio to interfere in the revels of Sir 
Toby and his friends, nor a shadow of that overween- 
ing self-love which makes Oh via' s usher so easy a mark 
for the palpable trickery of Maria. On the contrary, it 
requires the strongest personal effort of the Prince him- 
self, seconded by gifts and kind embraces, to persuade 
Bassiolo that his merits have indeed exalted him to be 
a great man's favourite. And if the action of this scene 
should seem impossible to us, we must remember that 
it would by no means appear so in an age which was 
only too familiar with base fellows exalted to be their 
sovereign's favourites. We have such an instance, in 
fact, in this play itself, and Bassiolo might well imag- 



xiiv 31tttrotiuction 

ine that his clauns to be the Prince's favourite were as 
good as those of Medici to be Alphonso's minion. 
Malvolio is something too seriously conceived to be 
a purely comic character ; he is sick of self-love ; the 
device that is put upon him only stimulates the expres- 
sion of his swollen self-conceit, and at the close of the 
play he breaks from the laughing throng of his torment- 
ors with a bitter cry for revenge. Bassiolo, on the 
other hand, is by no means so confident of his good 
fortune. At the approach of danger he is more than 
ready to desert his friend, and expresses a well-founded 
belief that he has been gulled. His struggle between 
greed and vanity in the last scene of the fourth act, 
his reckless bravado in the fifth when he has once 
chosen his part, his outcry against the wicked Prince 
when he anticipates punishment, and his instant volte- 
face when he learns that Vincentio is reconciled to his 
father, are pure emanations of the comic spirit. Nor 
is it difficult to look beyond the close of the play 
and see Bassiolo installed as the efficient, officious, and 
wholly spoiled major-domo in the household of Vin- 
centio and Margaret. 

Finally, as All Fools looks back to the past. The 
Gentleman Usher is an anticipation of the fiiture in 
comedy. It is in many ways a forerunner of later 
Jacobean comedy, particularly that of Fletcher. The 
atmosphere of the play is one of courtly romance. The 
plot, turning as it does upon a prince's love-affair, — 
troubled and for a time broken off by the passion of a 
monarch for his son's mistress, — is a common theme 
with Fletcher; and the way in which the comic relief is 



31ntroDuctton xiv 

blended with the romantic plot is to me distinctly more 
Uke the manner of Fletcher than like that of earlier 
writers. The construction, particularly in its fondness 
for reverses and surprise, — see especially Act v, — is 
rather romantic than classic and dimly anticipates 
the deft craftsmanship of Fletcher along these lines. 
The characters themselves, the prince and his mistress, 
the amorous monarch, the villainous favourite, the de- 
voted wife, and the beldame, Corteza, would fit easily 
into the frame of more than one of Fletcher's comedies. 
The easy gaiety with which the character of Bassiolo 
is handled brings him nearer to the " humorous " fig- 
ures of Fletcher than those of Jonson ; and Strozza, 
in his loyalty to his friend, his scorn of the intriguing 
courtier, and his frank outspokenness, seems to me a 
clear prototype of the honest soldier so common in 
Fletcher's work. None of the peculiar metrical char- 
acteristics of Fletcher appear, so far as 1 can see, in 
The Gentleman Usher ; but the ease and fluency with 
which Chapman employs blank verse in dialogue in 
such scenes as in, ii, and v, i, in this play, is, at the 
least, suggestive of Fletcher's careless and colloquial 
mastery of this form of verse. 

The question of Chapman's relation to Fletcher has 
not yet, I believe, received its due attention. I have 
no wish to exaggerate the importance of this rela- 
tion, or to make Fletcher a disciple of Chapman. But 
I am inclined to think that the later writer caught more 
than one hint from his predecessor, and to believe that 
a comparative study of their work would show that in 
certain plays. Sir Giles Goosecapy Monsieur D' Olive, 



xivi 31ntroDuction 

and especially The Gentleman Usher y Chapman was 
the first to strike into that field of romantic comedy 
which is now so peculiarly associated with the name 
of Fletcher. 



TEXT 

jill Fooles was first printed in quarto in 1605 for Thomas Thorpe. 
Mr. Sidney Lee informs me that the devices of this edition show 
the printer to have been the G. Eld who four years later set up 
Shakespeare's Sonnets for T. T. (the same Thomas Thorpe). 
There was but one early edition of ^// Fooles, for the variations in 
different copies of the Quarto of 1605 are no greater than one expects 
to find in Elizabethan books of the same edition. Thus in i, i, 184, 
A and D read unusering ; five other Qq, unnurishing. In 11, i, 9, 
most Qq read Adsolve ; M, and a copy in the possession of T. J. 
Wise, resolve. In 11, i, 30, A, B, D read veale ^ M, lueale. In 
I, i, 3, the Garrick copy in the British Museum reads straines ; 
A, D, M, and the King's copy in the British Museum, steaines. 
See also footnote, p. 81. For the significance of my lettering of 
the Quartos, see the third paragraph below. One point which might 
serve to distinguish various copies of this Quarto as belonging to an 
earlier or later state of the impression is the presence or absence 
of the parenthesis, ( ), before the last word of the Epilogue. See 
note ad loc. p. 139. 

The first reprint of this comedy appeared in the Select Collection 
of Old Plays edited by Isaac Reed and published by Dodsley in 1780. 
It was next reprinted in Walter Scott's Ancient British Drama, 
1 8 10. J. P. Collier included it in his Select Collection of Old Plays 
(a new edition of Dodsley), printing the Dedication (see Ap- 
pendix) for the first time and emending the text in various places. 
A professedly exact reprint appeared in The Comedies and Tragedies 
of George Chapman, published by Pearson, 1873, and edited, as the 
present editor is informed by Pearson & Co., by R. H. Shepherd. 
This retained the old spelling and punctuation, but is marred by 
several omissions, misprints, etc. Mr. Shepherd presented a mod- 
ernised text in The fVorks of George Chapman — Plays (Chatto and 
Windus, 1874-75). The text of the Mermaid Edition (^George 
Chapman, edited by W. L. Phelps, 1895) is based upon the reprint 
of 1873, with modernised spelling and punctuation. 



xlviii XE^tXt 

The present edition is based upon the editor's transcript of a copy 
of the Quarto formerly belonging to Drummond of Hawthornden and 
now in the Library of Edinburgh University. This transcript has 
been collated with copies in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, 
the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the 
Bodleian Library. The result of this collation has been the discovery 
of numerous minor variations in spelling and punctuation and a few 
corrections made while the edition was in press. These are noted in 
the variants. The original spelling has been retained, though the 
capitalisation has been modernised, and the use of italics for proper 
names disregarded. The confusing punctuation of the original text 
has been revised throughout, but wherever the original seemed to 
indicate a different meaning from that adopted by the editor, it has 
been recorded in the variants. 

A few obvious misprints of the Quarto I have corrected silently, as 
custodie for Qq cuffodie, in iv, 334. Other corrections are indicated 
by brackets, [ ] , as are all additions to the original stage-directions. 
In the footnotes I have used the symbols, Qq, to note a consensus 
of the Quartos, A, a reading of the copy in the Advocates' Library, 
D, of the Drummond Quarto, B, of the two copies in the British 
Museum, M, of the Malone copy in the Bodleian. For modern 
editions Do stands for the Dodsley of 1780, Co for Collier's edition, 
P for the Pearson reprint, and S for Shepherd's modernised edition. 
Changes by the present editor are denoted by " Emend, ed." 

In the Quartos the play is simply divided into acts. These have 
been subdivided into scenes. In designating speakers the whole name 
is given for the first speech in each scene, an abbreviation thereafter. 
These abbreviations have been normalised to avoid the confusion of 
the Quarto. 



%l fooled 



SOURCES 

Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatic Poets, 169 1, 
long ago pointed out that this comedy ** seems to be built in 
part upon the same Fabrick with Terence's Heautontimorumenos.^'' 
Professor Koeppel once more called attention to this fact in his 
S^ellen-Studien 'zu den Dramen George Chapmans, etc. {^ellen und 
Forschungen, Heft 82, 1897). Professor Koeppel, however, did 
not note that Chapman had also made use of another play by 
Terence, the Adelphi. This was first pointed out by Miss Wood- 
bridge in The Journal of Germanic Philology, vol. i, pp. 338, seq., 
and later, but quite independently and more fully, in a paper read 
at Princeton University by C. W. Kennedy, English Fellow. 
Mr. Kennedy showed that All Fooles is as regards the main plot 
a contaminatio of the Heautontimorumenos and the Adelphi. The 
many resemblances in characters, situation, and even speech between 
All Fooles and the comedies of Terence on which it is founded are 
pointed out in the Notes to this edition of Chapman's play. 

The sub-plot relating to the jealousy of Cornelio is thought by 
Professor Koeppel to have been suggested by the Merry Wi-ves of 
Windsor ,• but the only resemblance between the two plays is in 
their common presentation of a jealous husband, a figure peculiar 
neither to Shakespeare nor Chapman. Stier ( Chapman'' s All Fooles, 
etc., Halle, 1904) sees certain resemblances to Jonson's Kitely. 
From the dragging action of the under-plot the present editor is 
inclined to believe that this part of the play was Chapman's own 
invention. 



(^/A.]Lr 





Comedy, PrefenteJ at the Black 
Fryers, <tAnd lately before 

his Maidlie. 
Written by GmgeChapma», 




AT LONDON, 

Printed for Thomas Thorpe. 
t 6 o ^. 



ACTORS 



•j Knights. 



Courtiers 
Claudio 



gostanzo 
Mar[c]. Antonio 
Valerio, Sonne to Gostanzo. 
FoRTUNio, elder sonne to Marc. Antonio. 
Rynaldo, the younger. 
Dariotto ( 

Cornelio, a start-up Gentleman. 
Curio, a Page. 
Kyte, a Scrivener. 
Fraunces Pock, a Surgeon. 
[A Drawer.] 

Gazetta, wife to Cor[nelio]. 
Bellonora, daughter to Gostanzo. 
Gr ATI AN A, stolne wife to Valerio. 



PROLOGUS 

The fortune of a stage {like Fortunes selfi) 
Amaxeth greatest judgements : and none knowes 
The hidden causes of those strange effects ^ 
That rise from this He 11^ or fall from this Heaven, 

Who can shew cause why your wits that^ in ay me 5 
At higher objects^ scorne to compose playes^ 
{Though we are sure they could^ would they vouch- 
safe it ! ) 
Should {without meanes to make) judge better farre 
Then those that make ; and yet yee see they can ; 
For without your applause wretched is he 10 

That undertakes the stage^ and he's more blest 
That with your glorious favours can contest. 

Who can shew cause why th* ancient comick vaine 
QTEupolis and Cratinus {now reviv'd^ 
Subject to personall application) 15 

Should be exploded by some bitter splenes^ 
Tet merely comicall and harmelesse jestes 
{Though nere so witty) be esteemed but toyes,^ 
If voide of th* other satyrismes sauce ? 

Who can shew cause why quick Venerian jestes 20 
Should sometimes ravish .^ sometimes fall farre short 
Of the just length a?id pleasure of your eares 
When our pure dames thinke them much lesse obscene 



4 prologue 

Then those that w'lnne your panegyrick splene ? 

But our poore doomes {alas) you know are nothing ; 25 

To your inspired censure ever we 

Must needs submit^ and there's the mistery. 

Great are the giftes given to united heades ; 
To gifts ^ attyre^ to fair e attyre^ the stage 
Helps much ^ for if our other audience see 30 

Tou on the stage depart before we end^ 
Our wits goe with you all^ and we are fooles. 
So Fortune governes in these stage events 
That merit beares least sway in most contents. 
Auriculas asini quis non habet ? 35 

How we shall then appeare^ we must referre 
To magicke of your doomes., that never erre, 

27 mistery, all Qq except B. P. L., which reads, as does Co, 
misery. 



ai f oolejS 



Actus primi Sc^na prima. 
[y^ Street in Florence. ~\ 

Enter Rynaldoy FortuntOy Valeria. 

Rynaldo. Can one selfe cause, in subjects so 
alike 
As you two are, produce effect so unlike ? 
One like the turtle, all in mournefull straines 
Wailing his fortunes, th'other like the larke. 
Mounting the sky, in shrill and cheerefuU notes 
Chaunting his joyes aspir'd ; and both for love. 
In one, love rayseth by his violent heate 
Moyst vapours from the heart into the eyes. 
From whence they drowne his brest in dayly 

showers ; 
In th'other, his divided power infuseth 
Onely a temperate and most kindly warmth. 
That gives life to those fruites of wit and vertue, 
Which the unkinde hand of an uncivile father 
Had almost nipt in the delightsome blossome. 

3 straines. All Qq except that in Garrick Collection (B. M. — 
C. 13, c. 10), and B. P, L., steaines. 



6 ai iFOOle0 [Act I. 

Fortunio. O, brother, love rewards our services ^5 
With a most partiall and injurious hand, 
If you consider well our different fortunes. 
Valerio loves, and joyes the dame he loves ; 
I love, and never can enjoy the sight 
Of her I love, so farre from conquering 20 

In my desires assault, that I can come 
To lay no battry to the fort I seeke, 
All passages to it so strongly kept 
By straite guard of her father. 

Ryn. I dare sweare, 

If just desert in love measur'd reward, 25 

Your fortune should exceed Valerios farre ; 
For I am witnes (being your bedfellow) 
Both to the dayly and the nightly service 
You doe unto the deity of love 
In vowes, sighes, teares, and solitary watches ; 30 
He never serves him with such sacrifice. 
Yet hath his bowe and shaftes at his commaund. 
Loves service is much like our humorous lords. 
Where minions carry more than servitors : 
The boide and carelesse servant still obtaines; 35 
The modest and respective nothing gaines. 
You never see your love unlesse in dreames, 
He, Hymen puts in whole possession. 
What differrent starres raign'd when your loves 

were borne. 
He forc't to weare the willow, you the home ? 40 



Scene I] ^l jfOOltH 7 

But, brother, are you not asham'd to make 
Your selfe a slave to the base Lord of love. 
Begot of Fancy and of Beauty borne ? 
And what is Beauty ? a meere quintessence. 
Whose life is not in being, but in seeming; 45 

And therefore is not to all eyes the same, 
But like a cousoning picture, w^hich one way 
Shewes like a crowe, another like a swanne. 
And upon what ground is this Beauty drawne ? 
Upon a woman, a most brittle creature, 5° 

And would to God (for my part) that were all. 

For. But tell me, brother, did you never love ? 

Ryn. You know I did and was belov'd againe. 
And that of such a dame as all men deem'd 
Honour'd, and made me happy in her favours. 55 
Exceeding faire she was not ; and yet faire 
In that she never studyed to be fayrer 
Then Nature made her; beauty cost her no- 
thing. 
Her vertues were so rare, they would have made 
An iEthyop beautifull, at least so thought 6o 

By such as stood aloofe, and did observe her 
With credulous eyes ; but what they were indeed 
He spare to blaze, because I lovM her once ; 
Onely I found her such, as for her sake 
I vowe eternall warres against their whole sexe, 65 
Inconstant shuttle-cocks, loving fooles and 
jesters, 



8 ^l SfOOlta [Act I. 

Men rich in durt and tytles, sooner woone 
With the most vile then the most vertuous, 
Found true to none; if one amongst whole hun- 
dreds 
Chance to be chaste, she is so proude withall, 70 
Wayward and rude, that one of unchaste life 
Is oftentimes approv'd a worthier wife : 
Undressed, sluttish, nasty, to their husbands j 
Spung'd up, adorn'd, and painted to their lovers ; 
All day in cesselesse uprore with their hous- 

holdes, 75 

If all the night their husbands have not pleas'd 

them ; 
Like hounds most kinde, being beaten and 

abus'd. 
Like wolves most cruell, being kindelyest us*d. 
For. Fye, thou prophan'st the deity of their 

sexe. 
Ryn. Brother, I read that i^gipt heretofore 80 
Had temples of the riches [t] frame on earth, 
Much like this goodly edifice of women ; 
With alablaster pillers were those temples 
Uphelde and beautified, and so are women ; 
Most curiously glaz'd, and so are women ; 85 

Cunningly painted too, and so are women ; 
In out-side wondrous heavenly, so are women ; 
But when a stranger view'd those phanes within, 

8 1 richest. Emend. Do j Qq, riches. 



Scene I] 31 ifOOUfif 9 

In stead of gods and goddesses he should finde 
A painted fowle, a fury, or a serpent ; 90 

And such celestiall inner parts have women. 
Valeria. Rynaldo, the poore foxe that lost his 
tayle 
Perswaded others also to loose theirs : 
Thy selfe, for one, perhaps, that for desert 
Or some defect in thy attempts refus'd thee, 95 
Revil'st the whole sexe, beauty, love, and all. 
I tell thee Love is Natures second sonne. 
Causing a spring of vertues where he shines ; 
And as without the sunne, the worlds great eye, 
All colours, beauties, both of Arte and Nature, 100 
Are given in vaine to men, so without Love 
All beauties bred in women are in vaine. 
All vertues borne in men lye buried ; 
For Love informes them as the sunne doth 

colours. 
And as the sunne, reflecting his warme beames 105 
Against the earth, begets all fruites and flowers, 
So Love, fayre shining in the inward man. 
Brings foorth in him the honourable fruites 
Of valour, wit, vertue, and haughty thoughts, 
Brave resolution, and divine discourse : no 

O, tis the Paradice, the Heaven of earth. 
And didst thou know the comfort of two hearts 
In one delicious harmony united. 
As to joy one joy, and thinke both one thought, 



10 aiiFOOle0 [Act I. 

Live both one life, and therein double life, 115 

To see their soules met at an enter-view 

In their bright eyes, at parle in their lippes. 

Their language kisses, and t'observe the rest, 

Touches, embraces, and each circumstance 

Of all Loves most unmatched ceremonies, i^o 

Thou wouldst abhorre thy tongue for blasphemy. 

who can comprehend how sweet Love tastes, 
But he that hath been present at his feastes ? 

Ryn. Are you in that vaine too, Valerio ? 
Twere fitter you should be about your charge, i^s 
How plow and cart goes forward ; I have knowne 
Your joyes were all imployde in husbandry, 
Your study was how many loades of hay 
A meadow of so many acres yeelded, 
How many oxen such a close would fat. 130 

And is your rurall service now converted 
From Pan to Cupid, and from beastes to wo- 
men ? 
O, if your father knew this, what a lecture 
Of bitter castigation he would read you ! 

Val. My father ? why, my father ? does he 
thinke 135 

To rob me of my selfe ? I hope I know 

1 am a gentleman, though his covetous humour 
And education hath transformed me bayly, 
And made me overseer of his pastures ; 

He be my selfe in spight of husbandry. 140 



Scene I] 3il fOOltH II 

Enter Gratiana. 
And see, bright heaverl', here comes my husban- 
dry, Amptecti- 
Here shall my cattle graze, here nectar tur earn. 

drinke. 
Here will I hedge and ditch, here hide my trea- 
sure. 
O poore Fortunio, how wouldst thou tryumph. 
If thou enjoy'dst this happines with my sister ! 145 
For. I were in heaven if once twere come 

to that. 
Ryn. And me thinkes tis my heaven that I 
am past it. 
And should the wretched Machevilian, 
The covetous knight, your father, see this sight, 
Lusty Valerio ? 

Val, Sfoote, sir, if he should, 150 

He shall perceive ere long my skill extends 
To something more then sweaty husbandry. 
Ryn. He beare the6 witnes, thou canst skill 
of dice. 
Cards, tennis, wenching, dauncing, and what not ! 
And this is something more then husbandry; 155 
Th'arte knowne in ordinaries and tabacco 

shops. 
Trusted in tavernes and in vaulting houses. 
And this is something more than husbandry ; 
Yet all this while thy father apprehends thee 
For the most tame and thriftie groome in Europe. 160 



12 aiiFOOle0 [Act I. 

For. Well, he hath venter'd on a manage 
Would quite undoe him, 'did his father know it. 
Ryn, Know it ? alas, sir, where can he be- 
stow 
This poore gentlewoman he hath made his wife, 
But his inquisitive father will heare of it, 165 

Who like the dragon to th'esperean fruite. 
Is to his haunts ? Slight, hence ! the olde knight 
comes. 
Gostanxo. Rynaldo ? Intrat Gostanzo. 

Ryn. Whose that calles ? What, Sir 

Gostanzo ? Omnes aufugiunt. 

How fares your knighthood, sir ? 

Gost. Say, who was that 

Shrunke at my entry here ? Was't not your 

brother? 170 

Ryn. He shrunke not, sir ; his busines call'd 

him hence. 
Gost. And was it not my sonne that went out 

with him ? 
Ryn. I saw not him ; I was in serious speech 
About a secret busines with my brother. 

Gost. Sure twas my sonne; what made he 
here ? I sent him 175 

About affaires to be dispacht in hast. 

Ryn. Well, sir, lest silence breed unjust sus- 
pect, 

166 th'esperean. So Qq ; Co, th' Hesperean. 



Scene I] Sil ^fOOitH 1 3 

He tell a secret I am sworne to keep, 
And crave your honoured assistance in it. 

Gost. What ist, Rynaldo ? 

Ryn. This, sir; twas your sonne. 180 

Gost. And what yong gentlewoman grac'st 
their company ? 

Ryn. Thereon depends the secret I must utter : 
That gentlewoman hath my brother maryed. 

Gost. Maryed ? What is she ? 

Ryn. Faith, sir, a gentlewoman : 

But her unnurishing dowry must be tolde 185 

Out of her beauty. 

Gost. Is it true, Rynaldo ? 

And does your father understand so much ? 

Ryn. That was the motion, sir, I was en- 
treating 
Your Sonne to make to him, because I know 
He is well spoken, and may much prevaile 190 

In satisfying my father, who much loves him 
Both for his wisedome and his husbandry. 

Gost. Indeede, he 's one can tell his tale, I tell 
you; 
And for his husbandry — 

Ryn. O sir, had you heard 

What thrifty discipline he gave my brother 195 
For making choyce without my father's know- 
ledge 

185 unnurishing. So most Qq ; A and D, B. P. L,, unusering. 



14 aii?ooles; [acti. 

And without riches, you would have admyr'd 
him. 

Gost, Nay, nay, I know him well ; but what 
was it ? 

Ryn. That in the choyce of wives men must 
respect 
The chiefe wife, riches ; that in every course 200 
A man's chiefe load-starre should shine out of 

riches ; 
Love nothing hartely in this world but riches j 
Cast off all friends, all studies, all delights. 
All honesty, and religion for riches : 
And many such, which wisedome sure he learn'd^os 
Of his experient father ; yet my brother 
So soothes his rash affection, and presumes 
So highly on my fathers gentle nature. 
That he 's resolv'd to bring her home to him, 
And like enough he will. 

Gost. And like enough 210 

Your silly father, too, will put it up ; 
An honest knight, but much too much indulgent 
To his presuming children. 

Ryn. What a difference 

Doth interpose it selfe twixt him and you ! 
Had your sonne us'd you thus ! 

Gost. My Sonne ? alas .'215 

I hope to bring him up in other fashion, 
Followes my husbandry, sets early foote 



Scene I] 31 JfOOlefi? 15 

Into the world ; he comes not at the citty, 
Nor knowes the citty artes — 

Ryn. But dice and wenching. 

Aversus. 
Gost. Acquaints himselfe with no delight but 
getting, 220 

A perfect patterne of sobriety, 
Temperance, and husbandry to all my houshold. 
And what's his company, I pray ? not wenches. 
Ryn. Wenches ? I durst be sworne he never 
smelt 
A wenches breath yet, but me thinkes twere fit 225 
You sought him out a wife. 

Gost. A wife, Rynaldo .? 

He dares not lookee a woman in the face. 
Ryn. Sfoote, holde him to one ; your sonne 

such a sheep ? 
Gost. Tis strange in earnest. 
Ryn. Well, sir, though for my thriftlesse 
brothers sake 230 

I little care how my wrong'd father takes it, 
Yet for my fathers quiet, if your selfe 
Would joyne hands with your wi[s]e and to- 
ward Sonne, 
I should deserve it some way. 

'X'2,^-^z6 Wenches . . . ivife. This speech is printed as 2 11, in 
Qq : Wenches . . . breath. Tet . . . ivife. 

224 be snvorne. So A and D. Bi, B2, M, besivorne. 
233 ivise. Emend. S. Qq, wife. 



1 6 aiiFOOleflf [Act I. 

Gost. Good Rynaldo, 

I love you and your father, but this matter 235 
Is not for me to deale in, and tis needlesse ; 
You say your brother is resolv'd, presuming 
Your father will allow it. 

Enter Marcantonio. 
Ryn. See, my father! 

Since you are resolute not to move him, sir, 
In any case conceale the secret by way ^o 

Abscondit se. 
Of an attonement, let me pray you will. 
Gost. Upon mine honour. 
Ryn. Thankes, sir. 

Marc. Antonio. God save thee, honourable 

Knight Gostanzo. 
Gost. Friend Marc Antonio, welcome! and 
I thinke 
I have good newes to welcome you withall. n5 
Ryn. \aside\ . He cannot holde. 
Marc. What newes, I pray you, sir ? 

Gost. You have a forward, valiant, eldest 
Sonne, 
But wherein is his forwardnes and valour? 
Marc. I know not wherein you intend him 

so. 
Gost. Forward before, valiant behinde, his 
duety, 250 

238-241 See . . . ivill. 24 P""' \^t%t four lines as three : 
See . . . sir, In . . . secret i By . . . ivill. 



Scene I] 31 jfOOlefl? 1 7 

That he hath dar'd before your due consent 
To take a wife. 

Marc, A wife, sir ? what is she ? 

Gost. One that is rich enough : her hayre 
pure amber, 
Her forehead mother of pearle, her faire eyes 
Two wealthy diamants, her lips mines of rubies, 255 
Her teeth are orient pearle, her necke pure ivory. 
Marc, Jest not, good sir, in an affayre so 
serious ; 
I love my sonne, and if his youth reward me 
With his contempt of my consent in manage, 
Tis to be fear'd that his presumption buildes not 260 
Of his good choyce, that will beare out it selfe. 
And being bad, the newes is worse then bad. 
Gost, What call you bad ? is it bad to be 

poo re ? 
Marc, The world accounts it so; but if my 
Sonne 
Have in her birth and vertues held his choice 265 
Without disparagement, the fault is lesse. 

Gost. Sits the winde there ? Blowes there so 
calme a gale 
From a contemned and deserved anger ? 
Are you so easie to be disobay'd ? 

Marc. What should I doe ? If my enamour'd 
Sonne ^70 

264 ionne. Emend, ed. Qq, soone. 



1 8 aiifOOle^ [Act I. 

Have been so forward, I assure my selfe 

He did it more to satisfie his love 

Then to incense my hate, or to neglect me. 

Gost. A passing kinde construction ; suffer 
this. 
You ope him doores to any villany ; 275 

He'le dare to sell, to pawne, runne ever ryot. 
Despise your love in all, and laugh at you. 
And that knights competency you have gotten 
With care and labour, he with lust and idlenesse 
Will bring into the stypend of a begger, 280 

All to maintaine a wanton whirly-gig. 
Worth nothing more then she brings on her back, 
Yet all your wealth too little for that back. 
By heaven, I pitty your declining state. 
For, be assured, your sonne hath set his foote 285 
In the right path-way to consumption : 
Up to the heart in love; and for that love 
Nothing can be too deare his love desires : 
And how insatiate and unlymited 
Is the ambition and the beggerly pride 290 

Of a dame hoysed from a beggers state 
To a state competent and plentifull. 
You can not be so simple not to know. 

Marc. I must confesse the mischiefe ; but, alas. 
Where is in me the power of remedy ? 295 

Gost. Where ? In your just displeasure ! Cast 
him off. 



Scene I] ^l SfOOitSi 1 9 

Receive him not, let him endure the use 

Of their enforced kindnesse that must trust him 

For meate and money, for apparrell, house. 

And every thing belongs to that estate, 300 

Which he must learne vi^ith want of misery. 

Since pleasure and a full estate hath blinded 

His dissolute desires. 

Marc. What should I doe ? 

If I should banish him my house and sight. 
What desperate resolution might it breed 305 

To runne into the warres, and there to live 
In want of competencie, and perhaps 
Taste th' unrecoverable losse of his chiefe limbes. 
Which while he hath in peace, at home with me, 
May with his spirit ransome his estate 310 

From any losse his mariage can procure ? 

Gost. 1st true? Ne, let him runne into the warre. 
And lose what limbes he can ; better one branch 
Be lopt away then all the whole tree should 

perish ; 
And for his wants, better young want then olde. 315 
You have a younger sonne at Padoa, 
I like his learning well, make him your heire. 
And let your other walke ; let him buy wit 
Att's owne charge, not at's fathers ; if you loose 

him. 
You loose no more then that was lost before ; 320 
If you recover him, you finde a sonne. 



20 ;9l ifoole0 [act i. 

Marc. I cannot part with him. 

Gost. If it be so, 

And that your love to him be so extreame, 
In needfull daungers ever chuse the least ; 
If he should be in minde to passe the seas, 325 

Your Sonne Rynaldo (u^ho tolde me all this) 
Will tell me that, and so we shall prevent it ; 
If by no Sterne course you will venture that, 
Let him come home to me with his faire wife; 
And if you chaunce to see him, shake him up, 330 
As if your wrath were hard to be reflected, 
That he may feare hereafter to offend 
In other dissolute courses. At my house 
With my advice and my sonnes good example. 
Who shall serve as a glasse for him to see 335 

His faults and mend them to his president, 
I make no doubt but of a dissolut sonne 
And disobedient to send him home 
Both dutifull and thriftie. 

Marc. O Gostanzo ! 

Could you do this, you should preserve your selfe 340 
A perfect friend of mee, and mee a sonne. 

Gost. Remember you your part, and feare not 
mine ; 
Rate him, revile him, and renounce him too. 
Speake, can you doo't, man ? 

Marc. He do all I can. 

Exit Mar\j. Antonio\ . 
322-323 If . . . extreame. Q prints as one line. 



Scene I] 2ii jfOOitSi 21 

Gost. Ahlas, good man, how Nature over- 345 
wayes him ! 

RyTialdo comes foorth. 

Ryn. God save you, sir. 

Gost. Rynaldo, all the newes 

You told mee as a secret, I perceive 
Is passing common ; for your father knowes it ; 
The first thing he related was the marriage. 

Ryn. And was extreamly moov'd ? 

Gost. Beyond all measure; 350 

But I did all I could to quench his furie. 
Told him how easie t'was for a young man 
To runne that amorous course, and though his 

choyce 
Were nothing rich, yet shee was gentlie borne, 
Well quallified and beautifull ; but hee still 355 
Was quite relentles, and would needes renounce 
him. 

Ryn. My brother knowes it well, and is resolvd 
To trayle a pyke in field rather then bide 
The more feard push of my vext fathers furie. 

Gost. Indeed that's one way; but are no 
more meanes 360 

Left to his fine wits then t'incence his father 
With a more violent rage, and to redeeme 
A great offence with greater ? 

Ryn. So I told him ; 

But to a desperat minde all breath is lost. 



22 ^l iFoOle0 [Act I. 

Gost. Go to, let him be wise and use his 
friendes, 365 

Amongst whom He be formost to his father. 
Without this desperate errour he intends 
Joynd to the other He not doubt to make him 
Easie returne into his fathers favour, 
So he submit himselfe, as duetie bindes him; 37° 
For fathers will be knowne to be them selves, 
And often when their angers are not deepe 
Will paint an outward rage upon their lookes. 

Ryn. All this I told him, sir ; but what sayes 
hee ? 
" I know my father will not be reclaymde ; 375 
Heele thinke that if he wincke at this offence, 
T'will open doores to any villanie ; 
He dare to sell, to pawne, and run all ryot. 
To laugh at all his patience, and consume 
All he hath purchast to an honord purpose 380 

In maintenance of a wanton whirligigg 
Worth nothing more then she weares on her 
backe." 

Gost. [aside]. The very words I usd t'in- 
cense his father. — 
But, good Rinoldo, let him be advisde. 
How would his father grieve, should he be maynd 3^5 
Or quite miscarie in the ruthles warre ? 

Ryn. I told him so ; but better farr (sayd hee) 

381 wanton. Emend. Do; Qq, wenton. 



Scene I] 01 jfoOitSi 23 

One branch should utterly be lopt away 
Then the whole tree of all his race should perish j 
And for his wants better yong want, then eld. 39° 

Gost, [aside'^. By heaven the same words still 
I usde t' his father. 
Why comes this about ? — Well, good Rinaldo, 
If hee dare not indure his fathers lookes, 
Let him and his faire wife come home to me 
Till I have quallified his fathers passion. 395 

He shall be kindly welcome and be sure 
Of all the intercession I can use. 

Ryn. I thanke you, sir ; He try what I can doe, 
Although I feare me I shall strive in vaine. 

Gost. Well, try him, try him. Exit \_Gostanzo']. 

Ryn. Thanks, sir, so I will. 400 

See this olde, politique, dissembling knight. 
Now he perceives my father so affectionate. 
And that my brother may hereafter live 
By him and his with equall use of either. 
He will put on a face of hollowe friendship. 405 
But this will proove an excellent ground to sowe 
The seede of mirth amongst us ; He go seeke 
Valerio and my brother, and tell them 
Such newes of their affaires as they 'le admire. 

Exit \_Rynaldo]. 



24 ail i?OOle0 [Act I. 

[Sc^NA SeCUNDA. 

Before the House of Cornelio.'\ 

E?iter Gazetta, Bellonora^ Gratiana. 

Gazetta. How happie are your fortunes above 
mine ! 
Both still being woode and courted ; still so 

feeding 
On the delightes of love that still you finde 
An appetite to more ; where I am cloyde, 
And being bound to love sportes, care not for them. 
Bellonora. That is your fault, Gazetta ; we 
have loves 
And wish continuall company with them 
In honour'd marriage rites, which you enjoy. 
But seld or never can we get a looke 
Of those we love. Fortunio, my deare choyce, 
Dare not be knowne to love me, nor come neere 
My fathers house, where I as in a prison 
Consume my lost dayes and the tedious nights, 
My father guarding me for one I hate. 
And Gratiana here, my brothers love, 
Joyes him by so much stelth that vehement feare 
Drinkes up the sweetnesse of their stolne de- 
lightes : 
Where you enjoye a husband and may freely 
Performe all obsequies you desire to love. 



Scene II] ^l jfOOlt^ 25 

Gaz. Indeede I have a husband, and his love 20 
Is more then I desire, being vainely jelouse. 
Extreames, though contrarie, have the like ef- 
fects : 
Extreame heate mortifies like extreame colde ; 
Extreame love breedes sa[t]ietie as well 
As extreame hatred, and too violent rigour 25 

Tempts chastetie as much as too much licence. 
There's no mans eye fixt on mee but doth 

pierce 
My husbandes soule. If any aske my wel-fare, 
He straight doubts treason practised to his bed, 
Fancies but to himselfe all likelihoods 30 

Of my wrong to him, and layes all on mee 
For certaine trueths ; yet seekes he with his 

best 
To put disguise on all his jelosie. 
Fearing, perhaps, least it may teach me that 
Which otherwise I should not dreame upon. 35 
Yet lives he still abrode at great expence, 
Turns merely gallant from his farmers state, 
Uses all games and recreations, 
Runnes races with the gallants of the court, 
Feastes them at home, and entertaines them 

costly, 40 

And then upbraydes mee with their companie. 

23 Extreame heate. Emend. Do ; Qq, Extreames heate. 

24 satietie. Emend. Do ; Qq, sacietie. 



26 ai iFOOlC0 [Act I. 

E?iter Cor Tie Ho. 
See, see, wee shal be troubl'd with him now. 
Cornelio. Now ladyes, what plots have we 
now in hand ? 
They say when onely one dame is alone, 
Shee plots some mischiefe ; but if three together, 45 
They plot three hundred. Wife, the ayre is sharpe, 
Y'ad best to take the house least you take cold. 
Gaz. Ahlas ! this time of yeere yeeldes no such 

danger. 
Cor. Goe in, I say; a friend of yours at- 
tends you. 
Gaz. Hee is of your bringing, and may stay. 50 
Cor. Nay, stand not chopping logicke ; in, I 

pray. 
Gaz. Ye see, gentlewomen, what my hap- 
pines is ; 
These humors raigne in manage ; humors, hu- 
mors. Exit \_Gaxetta]y he 
Gratiana. Now by my sooth, I am followeth, 
no fortune teller. 
And would be loth to proove so, yet pronounce 55 
This at adventure that t'were indecorum 
This hefFer should want homes. 

Bell. Fie on this love ! 

I rather wish to want then purchase so. 

42 S,ee^ see, ivee. Emend S. All Qqbut M, -wee ivee. shal be. 
Qq, shalbe. 



Scene II.] ^l jfOOltSi IJ 

Gra. In deede such love is like a smokie fire 
In a cold morning ; though the fire be cheerefull, 60 
Yet is the smoke so sowre and combersome, 
T'were better lose the fire then finde the smoke. 
Such an attendant then as smoke to fire 
Is jelosie to love ; better want both 
Then have both. 

Enter Valerio and Fortunio. 

Valerio. Come, Fortunio, now take hold 65 

On this occasion, as my selfe on this : 
One couple more would make a barly-breake. 

[Gr^.] I feare, Valerio, we shall breake too 
soone ; 
Your fathers [jealous espial] will displease us. 

Val. Well, wench, the daye will come his 
Argus eyes 70 

Will shut, and thou shalt open. Sfoote, I thinke 
Dame Natures memorie begins to fayle her : 
If I write but my name in mercers bookes, 
I am as sure to have at sixe months end 
A rascole at my elbow with his mace 75 

As I am sure my fathers not farre hence ; 
My father yet hath ought Dame Nature debt 
These threescore yeeres and ten, yet cals not on 
him ; 

68 Gra. Emend, ed. Qq, For. See Notes, p. 124. 

69 jealous espial. Emend, ed. Qq, Jelosie Spy-all. S, jealous 
spy-all. See Notes, p. 121. 

69 displease. Dr. Bradley suggests 'disperse.' 



28 ai i?OOle0 [Act I. 

But if shee turne her debt-booke over once, 
And finding him her debtor, do but send 80 

Her Sergeant, John Death, to arrest his body. 
Our soules shall rest, wench, then, and the free 

light 
Shall triumph in our faces, where now night, 
In imitation of my fathers frownes, 
Lowres at our meeting. 

Enter Rinald\o\. 
See where the scholler comes. 85 
Rynaldo. Downe on your knees, poore lovers, 

reverence learning. 
Fortunio. I pray thee, why, Rinaldo ? 
Ryn. Marke what cause 

Flowes from my depth of knowledge to your 

loves. 
To make you kneele and blesse me while you 
live. 
Val. I pray thee, good scholard, give us cause. 90 
Ryn. Marke then, erect your eares : you know 
what horror 
Would flye on your love from your fathers 

frownes. 
If he should know it. And your sister here, 
(My brothers sweete hart) knowes as well what 
rage 

90 scholard. Emend, ed. <^q, Scholards. 
94 as ivell. ^q, aswell. 



Scene II.] ^l jfOOltii 29 

Would sease his powers for her, if he should 

knowe 95 

My brother woo'd her, or that she lovM him. 
Is not this true ? Speake all. 

Omnes. All this is true. 

Ryn. It is as true that now you meete by 
stelth 
In depth of midnight, kissing out at grates, 
Clime over walles. And all this He reforme. 100 

Val. By logicke ? 

Ryn. Well, sir, you shall have all meanes 
To live in one house, eate and drinke together, 
Meete and kisse your fils. 

Val. AH this by learning ? 

Ryn. I, and your frowning father know all 
this. 

Val. I, marry, small learning may prove that. 105 

Ryn. Nay, he shall know it, and desire it too, 
Welcome my brother to him and your wife. 
Entreating both to come and dwell with him. 
Is not this strange ? 

For. I, too strange to be true. 

Ryn. Tis in this head shall worke it ; there- 
fore, heare : no 
Brother, this lady you must call your wife. 
For I have tolde her sweet harts father here 
That she is your wife ; and because my father 
(Who now beleeves it) must be quieted 



30 ai iFoolee? [act i. 

Before you see him, you must live a while 115 

As husband to her in his fathers house. 
Valerio, here 's a simple meane for you 
To lye at racke and manger with your wedlocke; 
And, brother, for your selfe to meete as freely 
With this your long desir'd and barred love. i^o 

For. You make us wonder. 

Ryn. Peace, be ruld by mee, 

And you shall see to what a perfect shape 
He bring this rude plott, which blind Chaunce 

(the ape 
Of counsaile and advice) hath brought foorth 

blind. 
Valerio, can your heat of love forbeare '*S 

Before your father, and allow my brother 
To use some kindnes to your wife before him } 

VaL I, before him I do not greatlie care. 
Nor anie where in deed; my sister heere 
Shall be my spie ; if shee will wrong her selfe, 130 
And give her right to my wife, I am pleasd. 

For. My dearest life, I know, will never feare 
Anie such will or thought in all my powers. 
When I court her then, thinke I thinke tis thee. 
When I embrace her, hold thee in mine armes. 13s 
Come, let us practise gainst wee see your father; 

Val. Soft, sir, I hope you need not do it yet. 
Let mee take this time. 

Ryn. Come, you must not touch her. 



Scene II.] ^l iFOOUtf 3 1 

Val. No, not before my father ! 

Ryn. No, nor now, 

Because you are so soone to practise it, 140 

For I must bring them to him presentlle. 
Take her, Fortunio ; goe hence man and wife, 
Wee will attend you rarely with fixt faces. 
Valerio, keep your countenaunce and con [ferme] 
Your father in your forged sheepishnes, 145 

Who thinks thou dar'st not looke upon a wench, 
Nor knowest at which end to begin to kisse her. 

Exeunt. 

Finis Actus Primi. 

I '^() father ! Emend, ed. Qq, Father.? 

144 conferme Emend, ed. Qq, conseave. P. A. Daniel sug- 
gests 'conserve.' See Notes^ p. 122. 
Primi. Qq, Prima. 



Actus secundi Sc^na prima. 

[^ Street in Florence, before the House of Gostanzo.'] 

Gostanzo, Marcantonio. 

Gostanzo. It is your owne too simple lenitie 
And doting indulgence showne to him still 
That thus hath taught your sonne to be no sonne ; 
As you have us'd him, therefore, so you have 

him. 
Durst my sonne thus turne rebell to his dutie, 5 
Steale up a match unshuting his estate 
Without all knowledge of or friend or father, 
And, to make that good with a worse offence. 
Resolve to run beyond sea to the warres ? 
Durst my sonne serve me thus ? Well, I have 

stayd him, 10 

Though much against my disposition. 
And this howre I have set for his repayre 
With his young mistresse and concealed wife. 
And in my house here they shall sojourne both 
Till your blacke angers storme be over-blowne. 15 
Marc. Antonio. My angers storme ? Ah, poore 

Fortunio, 
One gentle word from thee would soone resolve 
The storme of my rage to a showre of teares. 

9 Resol've. Most Qq, Adsolve. M and a copy belonging to T J. 
Wise correct. 



Scene I] ^l jfoOleS? 33 

Gost. In that vaine still? Well, Marcantonio, 
Our olde acquaintance and long neighbourhood 20 
Ties my aflFection to you and the good 
Of your whole house; in kinde regard whereof 
I have advisde you for your credite sake, 
And for the tender welfare of your sonne, 
To frowne on him a little; if you do not, 25 

But at first parle take him to your favour, 
I protest utterly to renownce all care 
Of you and yours and all your amities. 
They say hee 's wretched that out of himselfe 
Cannot draw counsell to his propper weale, 30 

But hee 's thrice wretched that has neither coun- 
sell 
Within himselfe, nor apprehension 
Of counsaile for his owne good from another. 
Marc. Well, I will arme my selfe against this 
weaknes 
The best I can ; I long to see this Hellene 35 

That hath enchaunted my young Paris thus. 
And 's like to set all our pooreTroye on fire. 
Enter Valeria with a Page. 
Gost. Here comes my sonne ; withdraw, take 
up your stand ; 
You shall heare odds betwixt your sonne and mine. 
Marc. \_A?itonio^ retyres himselfe. 

30 iveale. So M. Most Qq, veale. 
37 Troye. Emend. Do. Qq, Trope. 
Marc. \Antonio\^ etc. In Qq this direction stands after 1. 37. 



34 3il ifOOleS [Act II. 

Valeria. Tell him I can not doo 't ; shall I be 
made 40 

A foolish novice, my purse set a broch 
By everie cheating come you seaven, to lend 
My money and be laught at ? Tell him plaine 
I professe husbandrie, and will not play 
The prodigall like him gainst my profession. 45 
Gost. [aside to Marc!]. Here 's a Sonne, 
Marc, [aside to Gost.'] . An admirable 

sparke ! 
Page. Well, sir. He tell him so. Exit Page. 
Val. Sfoote, let him lead 

A better husbands life and live not idlely, 
Spending his time, his coyne, and selfe on 
wenches. 
Gost. Why, what 's the matter, sonne? 50 

Val. Cry mercie, sir ; why, there comes mes- 
sengers 
From this and that brave gallant, and such gal- 
lants 
As I protest I saw but through a grate. 
Gost. And what 's this message ? 
Val. Faith, sir, hee's disappoynted 

Of payments, and disfurnisht of meanes present ; 55 
If I would do him the kind office therefore 
To trust him but some seven-night with the 

keeping 
Of fourtie crownes for mee, hee deepely sweares, 



Scene I] ^l jfOOlt^ 35 

As hee 's a gentleman, to discharge his trust ; 
And that I shall eternally endeare him 60 

To my wisht service he protestes and contestes. 
Gost. Good words, Valerio; but thou art too 
wise 
To be deceiv'd by breath ; He turne thee loose 
To the most cunning cheater of them all. 

FaL Sfoote, hee 's not ashamde besides to 
charge mee 65 

With a late promise ; I must yeeld, in deed, 
I did (to shift him with some contentment) 
Make such a frivall promise. 

Gost. I, well done; 

Promises are no fetters ; with that tongue 
Thy promise past, unpromise it againe. 70 

Wherefore has man a tongue, of powre to speake, 
But to speake still to his owne private purpose ? 
Beastes utter but one sound ; but men have 

change 
Of speach and reason, even by Nature given 

them. 
Now to say one thing and an other now, 75 

As best may serve their profitable endes. 

Marc. \aside\ . Ber-ladie, sound instructions 

to a Sonne ! 
FaL Nay, sir, he makes his claime by debt of 

friendship. 
Gost. Tush, friendship's but a terme, boy; 
the fond world 



36 aii?OOle0 [Act II. 

Like to a doting mother glases over 80 

Her childrens imperfections with fine tearmes; 
What she calls frindship and true humane 

kindnes 
Is onely want of true experience : 
Honestie is but a defect of witt, 
Respect but meere rusticitie and clownerie. 85 

Marc, \_aside']. Better and better ! Soft, here 
comes my sonne. 
Enter Fortuniortf Rinaldoy and Gratiana. 
Rynaldo \aside]. Fortunio, keepe your coun- 
tenance. See, sir, here 
The poore young married couple, which you 

pleasd 
To send for to your house. 

Gost, Fortunio, welcome. 

And in that welcome I imploy your wives, 90 

Who I am sure you count your second selfe. 

He kisses her. 
Fortunio. Sir, your right noble favours do ex- 
ceede 
All powre of worthy gratitude by words, 
That in your care supplie my fathers place. 

Gost. Fortunio, I cannot chuse but love you, 95 
Being sonne to him who long time I have lov'd ; 
From whose just anger my house shall protect you 
Till I have made a calme way to your meetings. 

86 Better . . . sonne. Q prints as two lines : Better . . . better. 
Soft . . , sonne. 



Scene L] ^l JfOOlf0 37 

For. I little thought, sir, that my fathers love 

Would take so ill so sleight a fault as this. loo 

Gost. Call you it sleight ? Nay, though his 

spirit take it 
In higher manner then for your lovM sake 
I would have wisht him, yet I make a doubt, 
Had my sonne done the like, if my affection 
Would not have turnd to more spleene then 

your fathers ; 105 

And yet I quallifie him all I can, 
And doubt not but that time and my perswasion 
Will worke out your excuse, since youth and 

love 
Were th'unresisted orgaines to seduce you ; 
But you must give him leave, for fathers must no 
Be wonne by penitence and submission. 
And not by force or opposition. 

For. Ahlas, sir, what advise you mee to doe \ 
I know my father to be highly moov'd, 
And am not able to endure the breath "5 

Of his exprest displeasure, whose bote flames 
I thinke my absence soonest would havequencht. 
Gost. True, sir, as fire with oyle, or else like 

them 
That quench the fire with pulling downe the 

house. 
You shall remaine here in my house conceaPd no 

109 orgaines. Emend, ed. Qq, organies. 



38 ail iFoOle0 [Act II. 

Till I have wonne your father to conceive 
Kinder opinion of your oversight. 
Valerio, entertaine Fortunio 
And his faire wife, and give them conduct in. 
Val. Y' are welcome, sir. 

Gost. What, sirha, is that all ?i25 

No entertainment to the gentlewoman ? 

Val. Forsooth, y' are welcome by my fathers 

leave. 
Gost. What, no more complement ? Kisse 
her, you sheepes-head. 
Why, when ? Go, go, sir, call your sister hither. 

Exit Fa/\_erio] . 
Ladie, youle pardon our grosse bringing up ? 130 
Wee dwell farre off from court you may perceive : 
The sight of such a blazing starre as you 
Dazles my rude sonnes witts. 

G?'atiana. Not so, good sir. 

The better husband the more courtlier ever. 
Ryn. In deed a courtier makes his lipps go 
farre, 135 

As he doth all things else. 

EnUr Velerioy ^^and"]^ Bell\_onord\. 
Gost. Daughter, recive 

This gentlewoman home, and use her kindly. 

She kisses her. 

128 What . . . sheepes-head. Qq as two 11. : What . . .com- 
plement? Kisse . . . sheepes-head. 



Scene I] ^l jfOOltH 39 

Bellonora. My father bids you kindly welcome, 

lady, 
And therefore you must needes come well to mee. 
Gra. Thanke you, for-soth. 
Gost. Goe, dame, conduct-am in. 140 

Exeunt Rinaldoy FortuniOy BeU\j)nora\ , 
Gra ^tiand\ . 
Ah, errant sheepes-head, hast thou liv'd thus 

long 
And dar'st not looke a woman in the face ? 
Though I desire especially to see 
My Sonne a husband, shall I therefore have him 
Turne absolute cullion ? Lets see, kisse thy 

hand. 145 

Thou kisse thy hand ? thou wip*st thy mouth, 

by th' masse. 
Fie on thee, clowne ! They say the world's 

growne finer. 
But I for my part never saw young men 
Worse fashin'd and brought up then now adayes. 
Sfoote, when my selfe was young, was I not kept 150 
As farre from court as you ? I thinke I was ; 
And yet my father on a time invited 
The Dutchesse of his house; I, beeing then 
About some five and twentie yeares of age. 
Was thought the onelie man to entertaine her; 155 
I had my conge — plant my selfe of one legg, 

148 young men. Qq print as one word. 



40 ai iFOOle0 [Act n. 

Draw backe the tother with a deepe fetcht honor, 

Then with a bell regard advant mine eye 

With boldnes on her verie visnomie, — 

Your dauncers all were counterfets to mee ; i6o 

And for discourse in my faire mistresse presence, 

I did not, as you barraine gallants doe, 

Fill my discourses up drinking tobacco ; 

But on the present furnisht ever more 

With tales and practisde speeches ; as some times, 165 

" What ist a clocke ? What stuff's this petti- 

coate ? 
What cost the making ? What the frindge and all ? 
And what she had under her petticoate ? " 
And such like wittie complements; and for need, 
I could have written as good prose and verse 170 
As the most beggerlie poet of am all. 
Either accrostique, Exordion^ 
Epithalamions^ Satyres^ Epigrams^ 
Sonnets in doozens^ or your ^uatorxaines 
In any Rime^ Masculine^ Feminine^ 175 

Or Sdructolla^ or cooplets,^ Blancke Verse ; 
Y'are but bench-whistlers now a dayes to them 
That were in our times. Well, about your hus- 

bandrie ; 
Go, for, i'fayth, th'art fit for nothing else. 

Exit Val \erio'\ , prodit Mar \c, Antoni6\ . 

174 Sluator%aines. Emend, ed. Qq, Quatorzanies. 

176 Sdruciolla. Emend, ed. Q, Sdrnciollaj Co, Sdruciolo. 



Scene I] Sii jfOOitH 4^ 

Marc. Ber-Ladie ! you have plaide the cour- 
tier rarelie. 180 

Gost, But did you ever see so blanck a foole, 
When he should kisse a wench, as my sonne is ? 

Marc. Ahlas, tis but a little bashfulnes ; 
You let him keepe no companie, nor allow him 
Monie to spend at fence and dauncing-scholes; 185 
Y' are too seveere, y' faith. 

Gost. And you too supple. 

Well, sir, for your sake I have staide your sonne 
From flying to the warres ; now see you rate him 
To staie him yet from more expencefull courses, 
Wherein your lenitie will encourage him. 190 

Marc. Let me alone; I thank you for this 
kindnes. Exeunt. 

Enter Valerio and Rinaldo. 

Ryn. So, are they gone ? Now tell me, brave 
Valerio, 
Have I not wonne the wreath from all your wits. 
Brought thee t'enjoy the most desired presence 
Of thydeare love at home, and with one labour 195 
My brother t'enjoy thy sister, where 
It had beene her undooing t'have hime seene. 
And ma [d] e thy father crave what he abhorres, 
T'entreate my brother home t'enjoy his daughter, 
Commaund thee kisse thy wench, chide for not 

kissing ; 200 

198 made. Emend, ed. Qq, make. 



42 ai iFOOleS? [Act II. 

And work[t] all this out of a Machevil, 

A miserable politician ? 

I thinke the like was never plaid before ! 

Val. Indeede I must commend thy wit of 
force, 
And yet I know not whose deserves most praise 205 
Of thine or my wit : thine for plotting well, 
Mine that durst undertake and carrie it 
With such true forme. 

Ryn. Well, th' evening crownes the daie; 
Persever to the end, my wit hath put 
Blinde Fortunne in a string into your hand; 210 
Use it discreetlie, keepe it from your father, 
Or you may bid all your good dales good night. 

Val. Let me alone, boy. 

Ryn, Well, sir, now to varie 

The pleasures of our wits ; thou knowst, Valerio, 
Here is the new turnd gentlemans faire wife, 215 
That keepes thy wife and sister companie. 
With whome the amorous courtier, Doriotto, 
Is farre in love, and of whome her sowre husband 
Is passing jelous, puts on eagles eies 
To prie into her carriage. Shall wee see ^^o 

If he be now from home, and visite her. 

Enter Gazetta sowing y Cornelia following. 
See, see, the prisoner comes. 

Val. But soft, sir, see 

201 ivorkt. Emend, ed. Qq, worke. 



scxNE I.] ai iFoolesf 43 

Her jelous jaylor followes at her heeles. 
Come, we will watch some fitter time to boord 

her, 
And in the meane time seeke out our mad crue.225 
My spirit longs to swagger. 

Ryn. Goe too, youth, 

Walke not too boldly; if the sergeants meete 

you, 
You may have swaggering worke your bellie 
full. 
Val. No better copesmates ! 
He go seeke am out with this light in my hand 5230 
The slaves grow proud with seeking out of us. 
Exeunt \_Falerio and Rinaldo\ . Gazetta sits 
and sings sowing. 
Cornelio. A prettie worke ; I pray what flowers 

are these ? 
Gazetta. The pancie this. 
Cor. O, thats for lovers thoughtes. 

Whats that, a columbine ? 

Gaz. No, that thankles flower 

Fitts not my garden. 

Cor. Hem! Yet it may mine. 235 

This were a prettie present for some friend, 

226—27 ^°^ ' • • fneete you. Qq print as one line. 
Ga'zetta . . . s&iving. Qq give this direction after 1. 229. 
234-235 No . . . mine. Qq break the lines thus: No . . . 
garden. Him ? . . . mine. 

235 Hem! Emend. Do. Ql) Him? 



44 311 iFOOle0 [Act n. 

Some gallant courtier, as for Doriotto, 
One that adores you in his soule, I know. 

Gaz. Mee ? Why mee more then your selfe, 
I pray? 

Cor, O yes, hee adores you, and adhornes mee. 240 
Yfaith, deale plainelie, doe not his kisses relish 
Much better then such pessants as I am ? 

Gaz, Whose kisses? 

Cor. Doriottoes ; does he not 

The thing you wot on ? 

Gaz. What thing, good Lord ? 

Cor. Why, lady, lie with you. 

Gaz. Lie with mee ?i45 

Cor. I, with you. 

Gaz. You with mee, indeed. 

Cor. Nay, I am told that he lies with you too. 
And that he is the onely whore-maister 
About the cittie. 

Gaz. Yf he be so onely, 

Tis a good hearing that there are no more. 150 

Cor. Well, mistresse, well, I will not be 
abusde; 
Thinke not you daunce in netts ; for though 

you do not 
Make brode profession of your love to him. 
Yet do I understand your darkest language, 
Your treads ath'toe, your secret jogges and 

wringes, aS5 



Scene I.] j^l fOOlt^ 45 

Your ent'ercourse of glaunces ; every tittle 
Of your close amorous rites I understand ; 
They speake as loud to mee, as if you said : 
" My dearest Dariotto, I am thine." 

Gaz. Jesus, what moodes are these ? Did 
ever husband 260 

Follow his wife with jelosie so unjust ? 
That once I lov'd you, you your selfe will sweare. 
And if I did, where did you lose my love ? 
In deed this strange and undeserved usage 
Hath powre to shake a heart were nere so setled ; 265 
But I protest all your unkindnes never 
Had strength to make me wrong you, but in 
thought. 

Cor. No ? not with Doriotto ? 

Gaz. No, by heaven ! 

Cor. No letters past, nor no designes for 
meeting ? 

Gaz. No, by my hope of heaven ! 

Cor. Well, no time past ; 270 

Goe, goe; goe in and sow. 

Gaz. Well, bee it so. Exit Gaz[ettd\. 

Cor. Suspition is (they say) the first degree 
Of deepest wisedome ; and how ever others 
Inveygh against this mood of jelousy, 
For my part I suppose it the best curb 275 

To check the ranging appetites that raigne 
In this weake sexe. My neighbours poynt at me 



46 ai iFOOleSf [Act II. 

For this my jelousy ; but should I doe 

As most of them doe, let my wife fly out 

To feasts and revels and invite home gallants, 280 

Play Menelaus, give them time and place. 

While I sit like a well-taught wayting-woman. 

Turning her eyes upon some worke or picture, 

Read in a booke, or take a fayned nap, 

While her kind lady takes one to her lap ? 285 

No, let me still be poynted at and thought 

A jelouse asse, and not a wittally knave. 

I have a shew of courtyers haunt my house. 

In shew my friends, and for my profit too ; 

But I perceive um and will mock their aymes »9o 

With looking to their marke, I warrant um. 

I am content to ride abroad with them. 

To revell, dice, and fit their other sports ; 

But by their leaves He have a vigilant eye 

To the mayne chaunce still. See my brave 

comrades. 295 

Enter DariottOy [and Page,'] ClaudiOy and Valerto : 
Valeria putting up his sword. 
Dariotto. Well, wag, well, wilt thou still de- 
ceive thy father. 
And being so simple a poore soule before him, 
Turne swaggerer in all companies besides ? 
Claudio. Hadst thou bin rested, all would have 
come forth. 

288 iheiu. Query, crew. 



Scene I] 31 jfOOltH 47 

Fa/. Soft, sir, there lyes the poynt ; I do not 
doubt 300 

But t' have my pennyworths of these rascals one 

day; 
He smoke the buzzing hornets from their nests. 
Or else He make their lether jerkins stay. 
The whorson hungry horse-flyes ! Foot, a man 
Cannot so soone, for want of almanacks, 305 

Forget his day but three or foure bare moneths. 
But strait he sees a sort of corporals 
To lye in ambuscado to surprize him. 

Dar. Well, thou hadst happy fortune to es- 
cape um. 
Fal. But they thought theirs was happier to 

scape me. 31° 

I walking in the place where mens law suites 
Are heard and pleaded, not so much as dreaming 
Of any such encounter, steps me forth 
Their valiant fore-man with the word, " I rest 

you." 
I made no more adoe, but layd these pawes 3^5 
Close on his shoulders, tumbling him to earth ; 
And there sate he on his posteriors 
Like a baboone ; and turning me about, 
I strayt espyed the whole troope issuing on me. 
I stept me backe, and drawing my olde friend 

heere, 320 

Made to the midst of them, and all unable 



48 ai iFOOlr0 [Act n. 

T'endure the shock, all rudely fell in rout, 
And downe the stayres they ranne with such a 

fury, 
As meeting with a troope of lawyers there, 
Man'd by their clyents, some with ten, some 

with twenty, 315 

Some five, some three — he that had least had 

one — 
Upon the stayres they bore them downe afore 

them; 
But such a rattling then was there amongst them 
Of ravisht declarations, replications, 
Rejoynders and petitions, all their bookes 33° 

And writings torne and trod on, and some lost, 
That the poore lawyers comming to the barre. 
Could say nought to the matter, but instead. 
Were fayne to rayleand talke besides their bookes 
Without all order. 335 

Clau. Fayth, that same vayne of rayling 

Became now most applausive j your best 

poet is 
He that rayles grossest. 

Dar, True, and your best foole 

Is your broad rayling foole. 

VaL And why not, sir ? 

325 with tiventy. Query, Is not this second with a printer's 
error ? The line is better without it. Co oroits it. 
336 Became. S, is become. Co, has become. 



sciNi I.] ai iFoole0 49 

For by the gods, to tell the naked trueth, 34° 

What objects see men in this world but such 
As would yeeld matter to a rayling humour ? 
When he that last yere carryed after one 
An empty buckram bag, now fills a coach, 
And crowds the senate with such troops of clyents 345 
And servile followers, as would put a mad spleene 
Into a pigeon. 

Dar. Come, pray leave these crosse capers. 
Let 's make some better use of precious time. 
See, here's Cornelio : come, lad, shall wc to dice ? 

Cor. Any thing I. 

Clau, Well sayd, how does thy wife ?3So 

Cor. In health, God save her. 

Val. But where is she, man \ 

Cor. Abroad about her businesse. 

Val. Why, not at home ? 

Foot, my masters, take her to the court. 
And this rare lad her husband : and — doest 

heare ? — 
Play me no more the miserable farmer, 355 

But be advisde by friends, sell all ith countrey, 
Be a flat courtier, follow some great man, 
Or bring thy wife there,and sheele make thee great. 

Cor. What, to the court ? Then take me for 
a gull. 

Val. Nay, never shun it to be cald a gull ; 360 
For I see all the world is but a gull. 



50 Zl jfOOle0 [Act II. 

One man gull to another in all kinds : 

A marchant to a courtyer is a gull, 

A clyent to a lawyer is a gull, 

A maryed man to a bacheler, a gull, 365 

A bacheler to a cuckold is a gull. 

All to a poet, or a poet to himselfe. 

Cor. [aside]. Hark, Dariotto, shall we gull this 
guller ? 

Dar, [aside']. He gulls his father, man, we 
cannot gull him. 

Cor. [aside]. Let me alone. — Of all mens 
wits alive 37° 

I most admyre Valerioes, that hath stolne, 
By his meere industry, and that by spurts. 
Such qualities as no wit else can match 
With plodding at perfection every houre; 
Which, if his father knew eche gift he has, 375 
Were like enough to make him give all from him : 
I meane, besides his dyeing and his wenching. 
He has stolne languages, th'Italian, Spanish, 
And some spice of the French, besides his daunc- 

ing. 
Singing, playing on choyce instruments : 380 

These he has got almost against the hayre. 

Clau. But hast thou stolne all these, Valerio ? 

Val. Toyes, toyes, a pox ; and yet they be 
such toyes 
As every gentleman would not be without. 



Scene I] ^\ jfoolt^ 5 1 

Cor. Vayne glory makes yee judge [um] lyte, 

yfayth. 385 

Dar. Afore heaven, I was much deceyv'd in 
him ; 
But hee's the man indeed that hides his gifts, 
And sets them not to sale in every presence. 
I would have sworne his soule were far from 

musike ; 
And that all his choyce musike was to heare 39° 
His fat beastes bellow. 

Cor. Sir, your ignorance 

Shall eftsoone be confuted. Prythee, Val, 
Take thy theorbo for my sake a little. 

Fal. By heaven, this moneth I toucht not a 

theorbo ! 
Cor. Toucht a theorbo ! marke the very word! 395 
Sirra, goe fetch. Exit Page. 

Val. If you will have it, I must needes con- 
fesse 
I am no husband of my qualityes. 

He untrusses and capers. 
Cor. See what a caper there was ! 
Clau. See agayne ! 

Cor. The best that ever; and how it be- 
comes him ! 400 
Dar. O that his father saw these qualityes ! 

385 um. Emend, ed. Co suggests, 'em light. Qq, on. See 
Notes ^ p. 126, 



52 ailifcM)le0 [Acxn. 

Enter a Page with a?i instrument. 

Cor. Nay, that's the very wonder of his wit, 
To carry all without his fathers knowledge. 

Dar. Why, we might tell him now. 

Cor. No, but we could not. 

Although we think we could; his wit doth 

charme us. 405 

Come, sweet Val, touch and sing. 

\_Val.'\ Foote, will you heare 

The worst voyce in Italy ? 

Enter Rinaldo. 

Cor. O God, sir. He sings. 

Courtiers, how like you this ? 

Dar. Beleeve it, excellent. 

Cor. Is it not naturall ? 

Val. If my father heard me. 

Foot, hee 'd renounce me for his naturall sonne.410 

Dar. By heaven, Valerio, and I were thy 
father. 
And lov M good qualities as I doe my life, 
Ide disinherit thee : for I never heard 
Dog howle with worse grace. 

Cor. Go to, Signeur Courtier, 

You deale not courtly now to be so playne, 4^5 
Nor nobly, to discourage a young gentleman, 
In vertuous qualityes, that has but stolne um. 

406 Val. Emend, ed. Qq, Dar. 

407-408 God . . . th'n. Qq print this as one line, includ- 
ing stage-direction. 



Scene I.] ♦ ^l jfOOltH S3 

Clau. Call you this touching a theorbo ? 
Omnes. Ha, ha, ha. 

Exeunt all but Fal[erto~\ and Rin\_aldo\ . 
VaL How now, what's heere ? 
Rin. Zoones, a plot layd to gull thee. 

Could thy wit thinke th[y] voyce was worth 

the hearing ? 420 

This was the courtiers and the cuckolds project. 
Val. And ist eene so ? Tis very well, Mast. 
Courtier 
And Dan Cornuto, He cry quit with both : 
And first He cast a Jarre betwixt them both. 
With firing the poore cuckolds jelousy. 425 

I have a tale will make him madde 
And turne his wife divorced loose amongst us. 
But first let's home, and entertayne my wife. 
O father, pardon, I was borne to gull thee. 

Exeunt. 

Finis Actus secundi, 

420 thy. Emend. S. Qq, the. 

422-425 And . . . jelousy. Qq print this as three 11. of prose, 
thus : And ist. . . Dan | Cornuto . . . jarre j betwixt . . . 
jealousy. 

423 And. Qq, &. 



Actus III. Scena I. 

[^ Street in Florence y before the House of Gostanzo."] 

Enter Fortunio, Bellanora^ Gratiana, Gostanzo follow- 
ing closely. 

Fortunio. How happy am I that by this sweet 
meanes 
I gayne accesse to your most loved sight, 
And therewithal! to utter my full love, 
Which but for vent would burne my entrayles 
up ! 
Gostanxo \_asicle~\ . Byth masse, they talke too 

softly. 
Bellonora. Little thinks 

The austere mind my thrifty father beares 
That I am vowd to you, and so am bound 
From him who for more riches he would force 
On my disliking fancy. 

Fort. Tis no fault 

With just deeds to defraud an injury. 

Gost. \_aside'^ . My daughter is perswading him 
to yeeld 
In dutifull submission to his father. 
E?iter Valerio. 
Val. Do I not dreame ? do I behold this 
sight 



Scene I.) 311 ifOOlf^ 55 

With waking eyes ? or from the ivory gate 

Hath Morpheus sent a vision to delude me? 15 

1st possible that I, a mortall man, 

Should shrine w^ithin mine armes so bright a god- 

desse, 
The fayre Gratiana, beautyes little world ? 
Gost. [aside] . What have we heere ? 
Fal. My deerest myne of gold, 2,0 

All this that thy white armes enfold. 
Account it as thine owne free-hold. 
Gost. Gods my deare soule, what sudde change 
is here ! 
I smell how this geare will fall out, yfayth. 
Fal. Fortunio, sister ; come, let's to the gar- 
den. 25 
Exeunt [Valerioy Gratiana y FortuniOy and 
Bellonora~] . 

Gost, Sits the wind there, yfayth ? see what 
example 
Will worke upon the dullest appetite. 
My Sonne last day so bashfull that he durst not 
Looke on a wench, now courts her ; and, byr-lady ! 
Will make his friend Fortunio weare his head 30 
Of the right moderne fashion. What, Rinaldo ! 
Enter Rin\_aldo\. 
Ryn \_aldd] . I feare I interrupt your privacy. 
Gost. Welcome, Rinaldo, would 'thad bin 
your hap 



56 ailiFOOleg [Act III. 

To come a little sooner, that you might 

Have seene a handsome sight : but let that 

passe, 35 

The short is that your sister Gratiana 
Shall stay no longer here. 

Ryn. No longer, sir ? 

Repent you then so soone your favour to her. 
And to my brother ? 

Gost. Not so, good Rinaldo ; 

But to prevent a mischiefe that I see 4° 

Hangs over your abused brothers head. 
In briefe, my sonne has learn'd but too much 

courtship. 
It was my chaunce even now to cast mine eye 
Into a place where to your sister entred 
My metamorphosde sonne: I must conceale 45 
What I saw there ; but to be playne, I saw 
More then I would see : I had thought to make 
My house a kind receypt for your kind brother ; 
But Ide be loth his wife should find more kind- 

nesse 
Then she had cause to like of. 

Ryn. What's the matter ? 50 

Perhaps a little complement or so. 

Gost. Wei, sir, such complement perhaps may 
cost 
Marryed Fortunio the setting on : 

44 ivhere to. (^q print as one word 



Scene I.J 3il SfOOltS 57 

Nor can I keepe my knowledge ; he that lately 
Before my face I could not get to looke 55 

Upon your sister, by this light, now kist her, 
Embrac't and courted with as good a grace 
As any courtyer could : and I can tell you 
(Not to disgrace her) I perceyv'd the dame 
Was as far forward as himselfe, byth masse. 60 

Ryn. You should have schoold him for*t. 

Gost. No, He not see 't : 

For shame once found, is lost ; He have him thinke 
That my opinion of him is the same 
That it was ever ; it will be a meane 
To bridle this fresh humour bred in him. 65 

Ryn. Let me then schoole him ; foot, He 
rattle him up. 

Gost. No, no, Rinaldo, th'onely remedy 
Is to remove the cause, carry the object 
From his late tempted eyes. 

Ryn. Alas, sir, whither ? 

You know my father is incenst so much 70 

Heele not receyve her. 

Gost. Place her with some friend 

But for a time, till I reclayme your father : 
Meane time your brother shall remaine with me. 

Ryn. (to himselfe). The care's the lesse then ; 
he has still his longing. 
To be with this gulls daughter. 

74 to himselfe. Qq place this in left hand margin of the page. 



58 ailiFOOlr0 [Act III. 

Gost. What resolve you ? 75 

I am resolv'd she lodges here no more : 
My friends sonne shall not be abusde by mine. 

Ryn. Troth, sir, He tell you what a sudden 
toy 
Comes in my head ; what think you if I brought 

her 
Home to my fathers house ? 

Gost. I, mary, sir ; 80 

Would he receyve her ? 

Ryn. Nay, you heare not all : 

I meane with use of some device or other. 

Gost. As how, Rinaldo ? 

Ryn. Mary, sir, to say 

She is your sonnes wife, maryed past your know- 
ledge. 

Gost. I doubt, last day he saw her, and will 
know her 85 

To be Fortunioes wife. 

Ryn. Nay, as for that 

I will pretend she was even then your sonnes 

wife. 
But fayned by me to be Fortunioes, 
Onely to try how he would take the matter. 

Gost. 'Fore heaven, 'twere pretty ! 

Ryn. Would it not doe well ? 90 

79-80 Comes . . . house. <^q print this as prose, breaking the 
line after home. 



Scene L] ^l JfOOlefil 59 

Gost. Exceeding well, in sadnesse. 

Ryn. Nay, good sir, 

Tell me unfaynedly, do ye lik't indeed ? 

Gost. The best that ere I heard. 

Ryn. And do you thinke 

Heele swallow downe the gudgion ? 

Gost. A my life 

It were a grosse gob would not downe with 

him ; 95 

An honest knight, but simple, not acquainted 
With the fine slights and policies of the world 
As I my selfe am. 

Ryn. He go fetch her strait ; 

And this jest thrive t*will make us princely 

sport : 
But you must keepe our counsell, second all, loo 
Which to make likely, you must needs some- 
times 
Give your sonne leave (as if you knew it not) 
To steale and see her at my fathers house. 

Gost. I, but see you then that you keepe good 
gard 
Over his forward, new begun affections ; 105 

For, by the Lord, heele teach your brother else 
To sing the cuckooes note : spirit will breake out. 
Though never so supprest and pinioned. 

Ryn. Especially your sonnes : what would he 
be, 



60 ai ifOOleSl [Act m. 

If you should not restrayne him by good coun- 

sell ? 1 10 

Gost. He have an eye on him, I warrant thee. 
He in and warne the gentlewoman to make ready. 

Ryn. Wei, sir, & He not be long after you. 

Exit Gost\anzo\. 
Heaven, heaven, I see these politicians 
(Out of blind Fortunes hands) are our most 

fooles ; 115 

Tis she that gives the lustre to their wits. 
Still plodding at traditionall devices ; 
But take um out of them to present actions, 
A man may grope and tickle um like a trowt, 
And take um from their close deere holes as fati»o 
As a Phisician, and as giddy-headed 
As if by myracle heaven had taken from them 
Even that which commonly belongs to fooles. 
Well, now let's note what black ball of debate 
Valerioes wit hath cast betwixt Cornelio 125 

And the inamoured courtyer ; I beleeve 
His wife and he will part : his jelousy 
Hath ever watcht occasion of divorce. 
And now Valerioes villany will present it. 
See, here comes the twyn-courtier his companio. 130 
Enter Claud[io\ . 

Claudio. Rinaldo, well encountred. 

Ryn, Why, what newes ? 

\ir by. Emend. Do. Qq, be 



Scene!.] ^\ jfOOlt& 6 1 

Clau. Most sudden and infortunate, Rinaldo : 
Cornelio is incenst so 'gainst his wife 
That no man can procure her quiet with him. 
I have assayd him, and made Marc Antonio 13s 
With all his gentle rethorike second me, 
Yet all, I feare me, will be cast away. 
See, see, they come : joyne thy wit, good 

Rinaldo, 
And helpe to pacify his yellow fury. 

Ryn. With all my heart, I consecrate my 
wit 140 

To the wisht comfort of distressed ladies. 
Enter Cornelio y Marc Ant\onio\y Valerio, \and^ P^g^' 

Cornelio. Will any man assure me of her good 
behaviour ? 

Val, Who can assure a jelous spirit ? you 
may be afrayd of the shaddow of your eares,i45 
& imagine the to be homes : if you will assure 
your selfe, appoynt keepers to watch her. 

Cor. And who shall watch the keepers ? 

Marc. Antonio. To be sure of that be you her 
keeper. 150 

Val. Well sayd, and share the homes your 
selfe : for that's the keepers fee. 

Cor, But say I am gone out of town & must 
trust others, how shall I know if those I trust be 
trusty to me ? ^55 

Ryn. Mary, sir, by a singular instinct, given 



62 ai iFooles; Iact m. 

naturally to all you maryed men, that if your 
wives play legerdeheele, though you bee a hun- 
dred miles off, yet you shall be sure instantly to 
find it in your forheads. i6o 

Cor. Sound doctrine, I warrant you : I am re- 
solv'd, ifaith. 

Page. Then give me leave to speak, sir, that 
hath all this while bene silent : I have heard 
you with extreme patience, now, therefore, 165 
pricke up your eares, and vouchsafe me 
audience. 

Clau. Good boy, a mine honour ! 

Cor. Pray, what are you, sir ? 

Page. I am here, for default of better, of 170 
counsel with the fayre Gazetta, and though 
her selfe had bene best able to defend her selfe, 
if she had bin here and would have pleasd to put 
forth the buckler which Nature hath given all 
women, I meane her tongue — 175 

Val. Excellent good boy ! 

Page. Yet since she either vouchsafes it not, 
or thinks her innocence a sufficient shield 
against your jelous accusations, I wil presume 
to undertake the defence of that absent &180 
honorable lady, whose sworne knight I am, 
and in her of all that name (for lady is growne 
a common name to their whole sex), which sex 

182 htr of all that. So Qq. Co, her all of that. 



Scene I] 311 jfOOlt^ 63 

I have ever loved fro my youth, and shall never 
cease to love till I want wit to admire. 185 

Marc. An excellent spoken boy ! 

Val. Give eare, Cornelio, heere is a yong 
Mercurio sent to perswade thee. 

Cor, Well, sir, let him say on. 

Page. It is a heavy case to see how this light 190 
sex is tubled and tost from post to piller under 
the unsavory breath of every humourous peas- 
ant : Gazetta, you sayd, is unchaste, disloyall, 
and I wot not what ; alas, is it her fault ? is 
shee not a woman ? did she not suck it (as oth-195 
ers of her sex doe) from her mothers brest ? and 
will you condemne that as her fault which is 
her nature ? Alas, sir, you must consider a 
woman is an unfinisht creature, delivered 
hastyly to the world before Nature had set to 200 
that seale which should have made them per- 
fect. Faultes they have (no doubt) ; but are 
wee free ? Turne your eye into your selfe (good 
Signeur Cornelio) and weygh your owne imper- 
fections with hers. If shee be wanton abroad, 205 
are not you wanting at home ? if she be amor- 
ous, are not you jelous ? if she be high set, are 
not you taken downe ? if she be a courtizan, are 
not you a cuckold ? 

Cor. Out, you rogue ! 210 

Ryn. On with thy speech, boy ! 



64 ail ifOOle0 [Act in. 

Marc. You doe not well, Cornelio, to dis- 
courage the bashfull youth. 

Clau. Forth, boy, I warrant thee. 

Page. But if our owne imperfections will 215 
not teach us to beare with theirs, yet let their 
vertues perswade us : let us indure their bad 
qualities for their good ; allow the prickle for 
the rose, the bracke for the velvet, the paring 
for the cheese, and so forth. If you say they 220 
range abroad, consider it is nothing but to avoyd 
idlenesse at home : their nature is still to be do- 
ing : keepe um a doing at home : let them 
practise one good quality or other, either sowing, 
singing, playing, chiding, dauncing, or so, ^225 
these will put such idle toyes out of their heads 
into yours : but if you cannot find them vari- 
ety of businesse within dores, yet at least imitate 
the ancient wise citizens of this city, who used 
carefully to provide their wives gardens neere23o 
the towne, to plant, to graft in, as occasion 
served, onely to keep um from idlenesse. 

VaL Everlasting good boy ! 

Cor. I perceyve your knavery, sir, and will 
yet have patience. 235 

Ryn. Forth, my brave Curio. 

Page. As to her unquietnesse (which some 
have rudely tearm'd shrewishnesse), though the 
fault be in her, yet the cause is in you. What so 



Scene I.l ^l foOltSi 65 

calme as the sea of it own nature? Arte was 240 
never able to equall it : your dyeing tables, nor 
your bowling alleys are not comparable to it ; 
yet if a blast of wind do but crosse it, not so 
turbulent & violent an element in the world. So 
(Nature, in lieu of womens scarcity of wit, hav-245 
ing indued them with a large portion of will) 
if they may (without impeach) injoy their willes, 
no quieter creatures under heaven: but if the 
breath of their husbads mouthes once crosse their 
wils, nothing more tempestuous. Why the, sir, 250 
should you husbands crosse your wives wils 
thus, considering the law allowes the no wils 
at all at their deaths, because it intended they 
should have their willes while they lived ? 

Fa/. Answere him but that, Cornelio. 255 

Cor, All shall not serve her turne, I am 
thinking of other matters. 

Marc, Thou hast halfe wonne him, wag ; ply 
him yet a little further. 

Page. Now (sir) for these cuckooish songs of 260 
yours, of cuckolds, homes, grafting, and such 
like, what are they but meere imaginary toyes, 
bred out of your owne heads as your owne, and 
so by tradition delivered from man to man, like 
scar-crowes, to terrify fooles from this earthly 265 
paradice of wedlock ; coyn'd at first by some 
spent poets, superannated bachelers, or some that 



66 ai iFOOle0 [Act III. 

were scarce men of their hands ; who, like the 
foxe, having lost his taile, would perswade others 
to lose theirs for company ? Agayne, for your 270 
cuckold, what is it but a meere fiction ? Shew 
me any such creature in nature ; if there be, I 
could never see it, neyther could I ever find 
any sensible difference betwixt a cuckold and a 
christen creature. To conclude, let poets coyne,275 
or fooles credit, what they list ; for mine owne 
part, I am cleere of this opinion, that your 
cuckold is a meere Chymaera, and that there are 
no cuckoldes in the world — but those that have 
wives : and so I will leave them. 280 

Cor. Tis excellent good, sir ; I do take you, 
sir, d' ye see ? to be, as it were, bastard to the 
sawcy courtier that would have me father more 
of your fraternity, d' ye see ? & so are instructed 
(as we heare) to second that villayne with your 285 
toung, which he has acted with his tenure piece, 
d'ye see? 

Page. No such matter, a my credit, sir. 

Cor. Wei, sir, be as be may, I scorn to set 
my head against yours, d' ye see? when in the 290 
meane time I will fircke your father, whether 
you see or no. Exit \_Cornelio\ drawing his rapier. 

Ryn. Gods my life, Cornelio ! Exit \_Rinaldo']. 

Val. Have at your father, ifaith, boy, if he 
can find him. ^95 

285 'villayne. So Qq. Query, villaynie. 



scENF I] ai ifooie0 67 

Marc. See, he comes here, he hast mist him. 
Enter Dariot\_io]. 

Dariotto. How now, my hearts, what, not a 
wench amongst you ? 
Tis a signe y'are not in the grace of wenches 
That they will let you be thus long alone. 

Val. Well, Dariotto, glory not too much 300 
That for thy briske attyre and lips perfumde 
Thou playest the stallyon ever where thou 

com'st; 
And like the husband of the flocke, runn'st 

through 
The whole towne heard, and no mans bed secure. 
No womans honour unattempted by thee. 305 

Thinke not to be thus fortunate for ever. 
But in thy amorous conquests at the last 
Some wound will slice your mazer : Mars him- 

selfe 
Fell into Vulcans snare, and so may you. 

Dar. Alas, alas, fayth, I have but the name :3io 
I love to court and wynne ; and the consent, 
Without the act obtayn'd, is all I seeke. 
I love the victory that drawes no blood. 

Clau. O, tis a high desert in any man 
To be a secret lecher; I know some, 315 

That (like thy selfe) are true in nothing else. 

Marc. And, me thinks, it is nothing if hot told ; 
At least the joy is never full before. 



68 ai iFOOle0 [Act III. 

VaL Well, Dariotto, th' hadst as good con- 
fesse, 
The sunne shines broad upon your practises. 3^o 
Vulcan will wake and intercept you one day. 

Dar. Why, the more jelous knave and cox- 
combe he ! 
What, shall the shaking of his bed a little 
Put him in motion ? It becomes him not ; 
Let him be duld and staid, and then be quiet. 3»S 
The way to draw my costome to his house 
Is to be mad and jelous ; tis the sauce 
That whets my appetite. 

VaL Or any mans : 

Sine periculo friget lusus. 

They that are jelous, use it still of purpose 330 
To draw you to their houses. 

Dar. I, by heaven ! 

I am of that opinion. Who would steale 
Out of a common orchard ? Let me gayne 
My love with labour, and injoy *t with feare, 
Or I am gone. 

Enter Rinaldo. 

Ryn. What, Dariotto here ? 335 

Foot, dar'st thou come neere Cornelioes house ? 

Dar. Why ? is the bull run mad ? what ayles 
he, trow ? 

Ryn. T know not what he ayles, but I would 
wish you 



Scene L] ^il ^OOltH 69 

To keepe out" of the reach of his sharpe homes : 
For, by this hand, heele gore you. 

Dar. And why me 34© 

More then thy selfe, or these two other whelps ? 
You all have basted him as well as I. 
I wonder what 's the cause. 

Ryn. Nay, that he knowes. 

And sweares withall, that wheresoere he meets 

you, 
Heele marke you for a marker of mens wives. 345 

FaL Pray heaven he be not jelous by some 
tales 
That have bin told him lately ! did you never 
Attempt his wife ? hath no loves harbenger, 
No looks, no letters past twixt you and her ? 

Dar. For look [s] I cannot answere ; I be- 
stow them 350 
At large, and carelesly, much like the sunne : 
If any be so foolish to apply them 
To any private fancy of their owne, 
(As many doe) it 's not my fault, thou knowest. 

Fa/. Well, Dariotto, this set face of thine 355 
(If thou be guilty of offence to him) 
Comes out of very want of wit and feeling 
What danger haunts thee : for Cornelio 
Is a tall man, I tell you ; and 'twere best 
You shund his sight awhile, till we might get 360 

350 looks. Emend. S. Qq, looke. 



70 ai JfoOleSf [Act III. 

His patience, or his pardon ; for past doubt 
Thou dyest, if he but see thee. 
Enter Cornelio. 
Ryn. Foot, he comes. 

Dar. Is this the cockatrice that kils with 
sight ? 
How doest thou boy ? ha ? 
Cor. Well. 

Dar. What, lingring still 

About this paltry towne ? Hadst thou bin rulde365 
By my advice, thou hadst by this time bene 
A gallant courtyer, and at least a knight : 
I would have got thee dubd by this time cer- 
tayne. 
Cor. And why then did you not your selfe 

that honour? 
Dar. Tush, tis more honour still to make a 
knight 370 

Then tis to be a knight : to make a cuckold 
Then tis to be a cuckold. 

Cor. Y'are a villayne! 

Dar. God shield, man : villayne ? 
Cor. I, He prove thee one. 

Dar. What wilt thou prove a villayne ? 
By this light thou deceyv*st me then. 375 

Cor. Well, sir, thus I prove it. 

^^Cornelio^ drawes. \_They Jight"^. 
Omnes. Hold, hold, rayse the streets ! 



Scene I.] 31 jfOOletf 7^ 

Clau. Cornelio ! 
Ryn. Hold, Darioto, hold ! 
Val. What, art thou hurt ? 

Dar. A scratch, a scratch. 

Val. Goe sirra, fetch a surgeon. \_Exit Page.~\ 

Cor. Youle set a badge on the jelous fooles 
head, sir ; z^o 

Now set a coxcombe on your owne. 

Val. What's the cause of these warres, Da- 
rioto ? 
Dar. Foot, I know not. 
Cor. Well, sir, know and spare not ; I will 
presently bee divorst : and then take her amongst 3^5 
ye! 

Ryn. Divorst ? nay, good Cornelio ! 
Cor. By this sword I will ; the world shall 
not disswade me. Exit \_Cornelio]. 

Val. Why this has bin your fault now, Da- 
rioto ; 
You youths have fashions, when you have ob- 

tei'nd 39° 

A ladies favour, straight your hat must weare it. 
Like a jacke-daw that, when he lights upon 
A dainty morsell, kaas and makes his brags, 
And then some kite doth scoope it from him 

straight. 
Where if he fed without his dawish noise, 395 

He might fare better, and have lesse disturbance : 



72 aijfooleflf [AcTiii. 

Forbeare it in this case ; and when you prove 
Victorious over faire Gazettas forte, 
Doe not, for pittie, sound your trumpe for joy, 
But keepe your valour close, and 'tis your honour. 400 
E7iter Page and Pock. 

Pock. God save you, Signior Darioto. 

Dar. I know you not, sir ; your name, I pray ? 

Pock. My name is Pock, sir; a practitioner 
in surgery. 

Dar. Pock, the surgeon, y' are welcome, sir; 405 
I know a doctor of your name, maister Pocke. 

Pock. My name has made many doctors, sir. 

Ryn. Indeede, tis a worshipfull name. 

Val. Mary, is it, and of an auncient discent. 

Pock. Faith, sir, I could fetch my pedigree 410 
far, if I were so dispos'd. 

Ryn. Out of France, at least. 

Pock. And if I stood on my armes as others 
doe — 

Dar. No, doe not Pock, let others stand 3415 
their armes, and thou a thy legs as long as thou 
canst. 

Pock. Though I live by my bare practise, yet 
I could shew good cardes for my gentilitie. 

Val. Tush, thou canst not shake ofF thy gen-4^0 
try. Pock, tis bred i'th bone ; but to the maine, 
Pock, what thinkest thou of this gentlemans 
wound, Pock, canst thou cure it, Pock ? 



Scene I] 31 jfOOltH 73 

Pock. The incision is not deepe, nor the ori- 
fice exorbitant, the pericranion is not dislocated ;425 
I warrant his life for forty crownes without per- 
ishing of any joynt. 

Dar. Faith, Pock, tis a joynt I would be 
loath to loose for the best joynt of mutton in Italy. 

Ryn. Would such a scratch as this hazard a 430 
mans head ? 

PocL I, byr-lady, sir, I have knowen some 
have lost there heads for a lesse matter, I can 
tell you ; therefore, sir, you must keepe good 
dyet : if you please to come home to my house435 
till you be perfectly cur'd, I shall have the more 
care on you. 

Fa/. Thats your onely course to have it well 
quickly. 

PocL By what time would he have it well, sir ?44o 

Dar. A very necessary question. Canst thou 
limit the time ? 

Pock. O, sir, cures are like causes in law, 
which may be lengthned or shortned at the dis- 
cretion of the lawyer; he can either keepe it 445 
greene with replications or rejoinders, or some- 
times skinne it faire a'th outside for fashion 
sake, but so he may be sure 'twill breake out 
againe by a writt of error, and then has he his 
suite new to begin; but I will covenant with 450 

430 hazard. Emend. Co. Qq, hazards. 



74 ai iFOOlefif [Act ra. 

you, that by such a time He make your head as 
sound as a bell; I will bring it to suppuration, and 
after I will make it coagulate and growe to a 
perfect cycatrice, and all within these ten dayes, 
so you keepe a good dyet. 455 

Dar. Well, come. Pock, weele talke farther 
on 't within ; it drawes neere dinner time, what's 
a clock, boye ? 

Page. By your clock, sir, it should be almost 
one, for your head rung noone some halfe houre46o 
agoe. 

Dar. 1st true, sir ? 

Val. Away, let him alone ; though he came 
in at the window, he sets the gates of your honor 
open, I can tell you. 465 

Dar. Come in. Pock, come, apply ; and for 
this deede 
He give the knave a wound shall never bleed. 
Exeunt all but Rlnal[do~\ and Faler\_io]. 

[Val.'\ So, sir, I thinke this knock rings lowd 
acquittance 
For my ridiculouse — 

Ryn. Well, sir, to turne our heads to salve 

your license, 47© 

Since you have usd the matter so unwisely 
That now your father has discerned your humor 

Exeunt all but. Qq put this stag-e-direction after 1. 469. 
468 Val. Emend, ed, Qq give this speech to Dariotto. 



Scene I] 01 jfOOltSi 75 

In your too carelesse usage in his house, 

Your wife must come from his house to Anto- 

nios, 
And he to entertaine her must be tould 475 

She is not wife to his sonne, but to you : 
Which newes will make his simple wit triumphe 
Over your father ; and your father, thinking 
He still is guld, will still account him simple : 
Come, sir, prepare your villanous witt to faine 480 
A kinde submission to your fathers fury. 
And we shall see what harty policie 
He will discover in his fained anger. 
To blinde Antonios eyes, and make him thinke 
He thinkes her hartely to be your wife. 485 

Fal. O, I will gull him rarely, with my 

wench 
Lowe kneeling at my heeles before his furie, 
And injury shal be salv'd with injurie. 

488 shal be. Qq, shalbe. 



Finis Actus j. 



Actus 4. Scena i. 

\_j4 Street in Florence before the House of Gosianzo."] 

Marc-Ant\_onio~\y Gostanzo, 

Marc. Antonio. You see how too much wis- 

dome evermore 
Out-shootes the truth : you were so forwards 

still 
To taxe my ignorance, my greene experience 
In these grey haires, for giving such advantage 
To my sonnes spirit that he durst undertake 5 

A secret match so farre short of his woorth : 
Your Sonne so seasoned with obedience 
Even from his youth that all his actions relish 
Nothing but dutie and your angers feare. 
What shall I say to you, if it fall out 10 

That this most precious sonne of yours has 

plaide 
A part as bad as this, and as rebellious: 
Nay more has grosely guld your witt withall ? 
What if my sonne has undergone the blame 
That appertain'd to yours? and that this wench 15 
With which my sonne is charg'd may call you 

father ? 
Shall I then say you want experience, 
Y'are greene,y'are credulous, easie to be blinded? 



Scene I] ^l jfoOltSi 77 

Gostanzo. Ha, ha, ha. 
Good Marc-Antonio, when 't comes to that 20 
Laugh at me, call me foole, proclaime me so. 
Let all the world take knowledge I am an asse. 

Marc. O the good God of Gods, 
How blinde is pride ? What eagles we are still 
In matters that belong to other men, 25 

What beetles in our owne ? I tell you. Knight, 
It is confest to be as I have tould you ; 
And Gratiana is by young Rinaldo 
And your white sonne brought to me as his wife : 
How thinke you now, sir ? 

Gost. Even just as before, 30 

And have more cause to thinke honest Credulity 
Is a true loadstone to draw on Decrepity : 
You have a hart to open to imbrace 
All that your eare receives : alas, good man, 
All this is but a plot for entertainment 35 

Within your house ; for your poore sonnes yong 

wife 
My house without huge danger cannot holde. 

Marc. 1st possible ? What danger, sir, I pray ? 

Gost. He tell you, sir; twas time to take her 
thence : 
My Sonne that last day you saw could not frame 40 
His lookes to entertaine her, now, bir-lady ! 

19-22 Ha . . . asse. So arranged by Co. Qq print this as 
three lines. Ha . . . Antonio. When . . . so. Let . . . Asse. 



78 aii?OOle0 [Act IV. 

Is grone a courtier : for my selfe, unseene, 
Saw when he courted her, imbrac't and kist her, 
And, I can tell you, left not much undone 
That was the proper office of your sonne. 45 

Marc. What world is this ? 
Gost. I tolde this to Rinaldo, 

Advising him to fetch her from my house, 
And his yong wit not knowing where to lodge 

her 
Unlesse with you, and saw that could not be 
Without some wyle, I presently suggested 50 

This queint devise, to say she was my sonnes: 
And all this plot, good Marc-Antonio, 
Fiow'd from this fount onely to blinde [y]our 

eyes. 
Marc, Out of how sweete a dreame have you 

awak't me ? 
By heaven, I durst have laid my part in heaven 55 
All had bin true ; it was so lively handled. 
And drawne with such a seeming face of trueth : 
Your Sonne had cast a perfect vaile of griefe 
Over his face, for his so rash offence 
To scale his love with act of marriage 60 

Before his father had subscrib'd his choyce ; 
My Sonne (my circumstance lessening the fact) 
Intreating me to breake the matter to you, 
And, joyning my effectual perswasions 

53 your. Emend. Co. Qq, our. 



Scene L] ^il jf00lt& 79 

With your sonnes penitent submission, 65 

Appease your fury ; I at first assented, 

And now expect their comming to that purpose. 

Gost. T'was well, t' was well: seeme to beleeve 
it still. 
Let art end what credulitie began ; 
When they come, suite your words and lookes 

to theirs, 70 

Second my sad sonnes fain'd submission. 
And see in all points how my braine will answere 
His disguisde griefe with a set countenance 
Of rage and choller ; now observe and learne 
To schoole your sonne by me. 

Intrant Rynaldo, Val\erio and~\ Grat\iana\. 

Marc. On with your maske ; 75 

Here come the other maskers, sir. 

Rynaldo. Come on, I say. 

Your father with submission wil be calm'd j 
Come on ; downe a your knees. 

Gost. Villaine, durst thou 

Presume to gull thy father ? doost thou not 
Tremble to see my bent and cloudy browes 80 

Ready to thunder on thy gracelesse head. 
And with the bolt of my displeasure cut 
The thred of all my living from thy life. 
For taking thus a beggar to thy wife ? 

75-76 On . . . sir. One line in Qq. jj nvil be. Qq, wilbe. 
77-78 Tour father . . . knees. C3ne line in Qq. 



80 ai iFOOlefli [Act IV. 

Valerio. Father, if that part I have in your 
blood, 85 

If teares which so aboundantly distill 
Out of my inward eyes, and for a neede. 
Can drowne these outward — \aside to Rynaldo\ 

Lend me thy hand-kercher. — 
And being indeed as many drops of blood 
Issuing from the creator of my hart, 90 

Be able to beget so much compassion 
Not on my life, but on this lovely dame. 
Whom I hold dearer — 

Gost. Out upon thee, villaine ! 

Marc. Nay, good Gostanzo, thinke you are 

a father. 
Gost. I will not heare a word ; out, out, upon 
thee ! 95 

Wed without my advise, my love, my knowledge, 
I, and a begger too, a trull, a blowse ? 

Ryn. ^aside to Gostanxo'^ . You thought not so 
last day, when you offerd her 
A twelve months boord for one nights lodging 
with her. 
Gost. \aside to Rynaldo~\ . Goe too, no more of 
that, peace, good Rinaldo ! 100 

It is a fault that only she and you know. 

Ryn. [aside to Gostanzo'] . Well, sir, go on, I 

pray. 
Gost. Have I, fond wretch, 



Scene I] gil jfOOltSi 8 1 

With utmost care and labour brought thee up, 
Ever instructing thee, omitting never 
The office of a kinde and careful! father, 105 

To make thee wise and vertuous like thy father; 
And hast thou in one acte everted all, 
Proclaim'd thy selfe to all the world a foole. 
To wedde a begger ? 

Fa/. Father, say not so ! 

Gost. Nay, shees thy owne ; here, rise, foole, 
take her to thee, "o 

Live with her still, I know thou countst thy selfe 
Happy in soule, onely in winning her : 
Be happy still ; heere,take her hand, enjoy her ; 
Would not a sonne hazard his fathers wrath. 
His reputation in the world, his birth-right, 115 

To have but such a messe of broth as this ? 

Marc. Be not so violent, I pray you, good 
Gostanzo, 
Take truce with passion, licence your sad sonne 
To speake in his excuse. 

Gost. What ! what excuse ? 

Can any orator in this case excuse him ? 120 

What can he say ? what can be said of any ? 

Val. Ahlas, sir, heare me ! all that I can say 
In my excuse is but to shew loves warrant. 

Gost. \_aside\ . Notable wagge ' 

Fa/. I know 1 have committed 

1 09-1 16 Father. . . thii? In M this whole passage is given 
to Val. Other Qq are correct. 



82 ailiFOOle0 [Act IV. 

A great impiety not to moove you first 115 

Before the dame I meant to make my wife. 

Consider what I am, yet young and greene, 

Beholde what she is -, is there not in her 

I, in her very eye, a power to conquer 

Even age it selfe and wisdome ? Call to minde, 130 

Sweete father, what your selfe being young have 

bin ; 
Thinke what you may be, for I doe not thinke 
The world so farre spent with you but you may 
Looke back on such a beauty, and I hope 
To see you young againe, and to live long 135 

With young affections ; wisdome makes a man 
Live young for ever : and where is this 

wisdome 
If not in you ? Ahlas, I know not what 
Rests in your wisedome to subdue affections. 
But I protest it wrought with me so strongly 140 
That I had quite bin drownd in seas of teares 
Had I not taken hold in happy time 
Of this sweete hand ; my hart had beene 

consum'de 
T'a heape of ashes with the flames of love, 
Had it not sweetly bin asswag'd and cool'd, 145 
With the moist kisses of these sugred lippes. 
Gost. ^aside to MarcJ] . O, puisant wag, what 

huge large thongs he cuts 
Out of his friend Fortunios stretching leather ! 



Scene I.] ^l jfOOlt& 83 

Marc. \_aside\. He knows he does it but to 

blinde my eyes. 
Gost. \aside\. O excellent, these men will 

put up any thing. 150 

Val. Had I not had her, I had lost my life, 
Which life indeed I would have lost before 
I had displeasd you, had I not receav'd it 
From such a kinde, a wise, and honoured 
father. 
Gost. \aside\ . Notable boy ! 
Val. Yet doe I here renounce 155 

Love, life, and all, rather then one houre longer 
Indure to have your love eclipsed from me. 
Gratiana. O, I can hold no longer; if thy 
words 
Be us'd in earnest, my Valerio, 
Thou woundst my hart, but I know tis in jest. 160 
Gost. \asidf^ . No, He be sworne she has her 

lyripoope too. 
Gra. Didst thou not sweare to love me spight 
of father 
And all the world, that nought should sever us 
But death it selfe. 

Val. I did, but if my father 

Will have his sonne foresworne, upon his soule 165 

160 u% Emend, Co. Qq, tist. 

162-164 Didst . . . father. Qq print this: Did$t . . . ivorld 
(with & for j4nd) That . . . selfe. I . , . father. 



84 ai iFOOleSf [Act IV. 

The blood of my black perjurie shall lye, 
For I will seeke his favour though I dye. 

Gost. No, no, live still, my sonne ; thou well 
shalt know 
I have a fathers hart ; come, joyne your hands ; 
Still keepe thy vowes, and live together still 170 
Till cruell death set foote betwixt you both. 

VaL O, speake you this in earnest ? 

Gost. I, by heaven ! 

VaL And never to recall it ? 

Gost. Not till death. 

Ryn. Excellent sir, you have done like your 
selfe ! 
What would you more, Valerio ? 

VaL Worshipfull father ! 175 

Ryn, Come, sir, come you in, and celebrate 
your joyes. Exeunt all save the old men. 

Gost. O Marc- Antonio, 
Had I not armd you with an expectation. 
Would not this make you pawne your very 

soule. 
The wench had bin my sonnes wife ? 

Marc. Yes, by heaven ! 180 

A knaverie thus effected might deceive 
A wiser man then I, for I ahlas. 
Am noe good polititian, plaine beleeving, 
Simple honesty, is my policy still. 

168 Hue . . . Sonne. Query y live sti/I my sonne. 



Scene I] gl foOltH 85 

Gost. The visible markes of folly, honesty, 185 
And quick credulitie, his yonger brother. 
I tell you, Marc-Antonio, there is mutch 
In that young boy, my sonne. 

Marc. Not much honesty, 

If I may speake without offence to his father. 

Gost. O God, you cannot please me better, sir ! 190 
H'as honesty enough to serve his turne, 
The lesse honesty ever the more wit. 
But goe you home, and use your daughter kindly, 
Meane time He schoole your sonne : and do you 

still 
Dissemble what you know,keepe off your sonne; 195 
The wench at home must still be my sonnes wife, 
Remember that, and be you blinded still. 

Marc. You must remember, too, to let your 
sonne 
Use his accustomm'd visitations, 
Onely to blinde my eyes. 

Gost. He shall not faile : 200 

But still take you heede, have a vigilant eye 
On that slie childe of mine, for by this light, 
Heele be too bould with your sonnes forhead els. 

Marc. Well, sir, let me alone. He beare a 
braine. 

Exeunt \_Marc. Antonio and Gosta?izo.'\ 

185-186 The 'visible . . . brother. Qq print this as one line. 
188-189 Not much . . . father. Qq print this as one line. 



86 ail iFooles; [act iv. 

Enter Valeria \and'\ Rynaldo. 

Val. Come, they are gone. 

Ryn. Gone, they were farre gone heere.205 

Val. Guld I my father, or guld he himselfe ? 
Thou toldst him Gratiana was my wife, 
I have confest it, he has pardoned it. 

Ryn. Nothing more true, enow can witnesse 
it. 
And therefore when he comes to learne the 

truth, 210 

(As certainly for all these slie disguises 
Time will strip Truth into her nakednesse), 
Thou hast good plea against him to confesse 
The honor'd action, and to claime his pardon. 

Val. Tis true, for all was done, he deeply 
swore, 215 

Out of his hart. 

Ryn. He has much faith the whiles. 

That swore a thing so quite against his hart. 

Val. Why, this is pollicie. 

Ryn. Well, see you repaire, 

To Gratiana daily, and enjoy her 
In her true kinde ; and now we must expect 220 
The resolute and ridiculous divorce 
Cornelio hath sued against his wedlock. 

Val. I thinke it be not so ; the asse dotes on 
her. 

Ryn. It is too true, and thou shalt answere it, 



Scene I.l 3il SfOOltH 87 

For setting such debate twixt man and wife : 225 
See, we shall see the solemne maner of it. 
E?iUr Cor [nelio\ , Darioto, Claud \io~\ , NotariCy Page, 
Gazettay Bell \_onoray andl^ Gratiana. 

Bellonora. Good Signior Cornelio, let us poore 
gentlewomen intreate you to forbeare. 

Cornelio. Talke no more to me, He not be 
made cuckold in my owne house: Notarie, read 230 
me the divorce. 

Gazetta. My deare Cornelio, examine the 
cause better before you condemne me. 

Cor. Sing to me no more, syren, for I will heare 
thee no more, I will take no compassion on thee. 235 

Page. Good Signior Cornelio, be not too man- 
kinde against your wife ; say y'are a cuckold (as 
the best that is may be so at a time) will you 
make a trumpet of your owne homes? 

Cor. Goe too, sir, y'are a rascall ! He give 240 
you a fee for pleading for her one day. Notary, 
doe you your office. 

Val. Goe too, Signior, looke better to your 
wife, and be better advised before you grow to 
this extremitie. 245 

Cor. Extremity? go too, I deale but too 
mercifully with her. If I should use extremitie 
with her, I might hang her and her copesmate, 
my drudge here ; how say you M [aster] Notary, 
might I not doe it by law ? 250 

249 Master Notary. Qq, M. Notary 



88 ai iFOOle0 [Act IV. 

Notary. Not hang am, but you may bring 
them both to a white sheete. 

Cor. Nay, by the masse, they have had too 
much of the sheete already. 

Not. And besides you may set capitall letters 255 
on their foreheads. 

Cor. What's that to the capitall letter thats 
written in minde ? I say for all your law, Maister 
Notary, that I may hang am ; may I not hang 
him that robs me of my honour as well as he 260 
that robs me of my horse ? 

Not. No, sir, your horse is a chattell ! 

Cor. Soe is honour : a man may buy it with 
his peny, and if I may hang a man for stealing 
my horse (as I say), much more for robbing mee265 
of my honour \ for why ? if my horse be stolne, 
it may bee my owne fault ; for why ? eyther the 
stable is not strong enough, or the pasture not 
well fenc't, or watcht, or so foorth. But for 
your wife that keepes the stable of your honour, 270 
let her be lockt in a brazen towre, let Argus 
himselfe keepe her, yet can you never bee secure 
of your honour ; for why? she can runne through 
all with her serpent nodle : besides you may 
hang a locke upon your horse, and so can you 175 
not upon your wife. 

Ryn. But I pray you, sir, what are the pre- 

258 minde. So Qq. See iVo^«, p, 13a. 



Scene I.] 31 jfOOltH 89 

sumptions on which you would build this 
divorce ? 

Cor. Presumption enough, sir, for besides their 280 
entercourse, or commerce of glances that past 
betwixt this cockrill-drone and her at my table 
the last Sunday night at supper, their winckes, 
their beckes, — due gard ! — their treads a' the 
toe (as by heaven I sweare she trode once upon 285 
my toe instead of his), this is chiefly to be noted : 
the same night she would needs lie alone, and 
the same night her dog barkt — did you not heare 
him, Valerio ? 

Fa/. And understand him too. He be sworne29o 
of a booke. 

Cor. Why, very good, if these be not manifest 
presumptions now, let the world be judge. 
Therefore without more ceremony, Maister 
Notarie, plucke out your instrument. 295 

Not. I will, sir, if there be no remedie. 

Cor. Have you made it strong in law, Maister 
Notary ? have you put in words enough ? 

Not. I hope so, sir, it has taken me a whole 
skinne of parchment, you see. 300 

Cor. Very good, and is " egresse " and " re- 
gresse " in ? 

Not. He warrant you, sir, it h forma juris. 

Cor. Is there no hoale to be found in the 
ortography ? 3^5 



90 ai iFOOlefif [Act IV. 

Not. None in the world, sir. 

Cor. You have written Sunt with an 5, have 
you not ? 

Not. Yes, that I have. 

Cor. You have done the better for quietnesse3io 
sake : and are none of the autenticall dashes 
over the head left out ? If there be, Maister 
Notary, an error will lye [on't] . 

Not. Not for a dashe over head, sir, I warrant 
you, if I should oversee; I have seene that 315 
tryed in Butiro & Caseo, in Butler and Casons 
case, decimo sexto of Duke Anonimo. 

Ryn. Y' ave gotten a learned Notarie, Signior 
Cornelio. 

Cor. Hees a shroad fellow indeed ; I had as 320 
leeve have his head in a matter of fellony or 
treason as any notary in Florence. Read out, 
Maister Notary ; harken you, mistresse ; gentle- 
men, marke, I beseech you. 

Omnes. We will all marke you, sir, I war- 325 
rant you. 

Not. I thinke it would be something tedious to 
read all, and therfore, gentlemen, the summe is 
this : That you, Signior Cornelio, gentleman, 
for divers & sundry waighty and mature con- 330 
siderations, you especially moving, specifying 

313 ont. Suggested by O. G. (Octavius Gilchrist) in footnote to 
Co. Qq, out. 



Scene I.] 31 ifOOleflf 9 1 

all the particulars of your wives enormities in 
a scedule hereunto annexed, the transcript 
whereof is in your owne tenure, custodie, occu- 
pation, & keeping: That for these the aforesaid 335 
premises, I say, you renounce, disclaime, and 
discharge Gazetta fro being your leeful, or your 
lawfull, wife : And that you eftsoones devide, 
disjoyne, seperate, remove, & finally eloigne, 
sequester, & divorce her, fro your bed & your 340 
boord : That you forbid her all accesse, repaire, 
egresse, or regresse, to your person or persons, 
mansion or mansions, dwellings, habitations, re- 
mainenances, or abodes, or to any shop, sellar, 
soUar, easements chamber, dormer, and so forth, 345 
now in the tenure, custody, occupation, or keep- 
ing of the said Cornelio ; notwithstanding all 
former contracts, covenants, bargaines, condi- 
tions, agreements, compacts, promises, vowes, 
affiances, assurances, bonds, billes, indentures, 350 
pole-deedes, deeds of guift, defesances, feoff- 
ments, endowments, vowchers, double vowch- 
ers, privie entries, actions, declarations, explica- 
tions, rejoinders, surrejoinders, rights, interests, 
demands, claymes, or titles whatsoever, hereto- 355 
fore betwixt the one and the other party, or 
parties, being had, made, past, covenanted & 
agreed, from the beginning of the world till the 
day of the date hereof, given the 17. of Novem- 



92 ai ifOOleS? [Act IV. 

ber 1500 and so forth. Here, sir, you must set 360 
to your hand. 

Cor. What els, Maister Notary ? I am reso- 
lute, ifalth. 

Gaz. Sweete husband, forbeare. 

Cor. Avoyde, I charge thee in the name of 365 
this divorce : thou mightst have lookt to it in 
time, yet this I will doe for thee ; if thou canst 
spie out any other man that thou wouldest cuck- 
olde, thou shalt have my letter to him : I can do 
no more. More inke, Maister Notary, I wright 37° 
my name at large. 

Not. Here is more, sir. 

Cor. Ah, asse, that thou could not know thy 
happinesse till thou hadst lost it ! How now ? 
my nose bleed ? shall I write in blood ? what, 375 
onely three drops ? Sfoote thi's ominous : I 
will not set my hand toot now certaine. Mais- 
ter Notary, I like not this abodement : I will 
deferre the setting too of my hand till the next 
court day: keepe the divorce, I pray you, and 380 
the woman in your house together. 

Omnes. Burne the divorce, burne the divorce ! 

Cor. Not so, sir, it shall not serve her turne. 
M [aster] Notary, keep it at your perill, &, gen- 
tlemen, you may be gone, a Gods name; whatsis 
have you to doe to flocke about me thus ? I am 

384 Master Notary. Qq, M. Notary. 



Scene I] 31 i?OOle0 93 

neither howlet, nor cuckooe. Gentlewomen, for 
Gods sake, medle with your owne cases, it is 
not fit you should haunt these publike assembles. 

Omnes. Well, farewell, Cornelio. 390 

Val. Use the gentlewoman kindely, Maister 
Notary. 

[A^(7^.] As mine owne wife, I assure you, sir. 
Exeunt \_all but Cornelio and CIaudio~\ . 

Clau. Signior Cornelio, I canot but in kinde- 
nes tell you that Valerio by counsaile of Rinaldo395 
hath whispered all this jealosie into your eares ; 
not that he knew any just cause in your wife, 
but only to be revengd on you for the gull you 
put upon him when you drew him with his 
glory to touch the theorbo. 400 

Cor. May I beleeve this ? 

Clau. As I am a gentleman : and if this acci- 
dent of your nose had not falne out, I would 
have told you this before you set too your hand. 

Cor. It may well be, yet have I cause enough 405 
To perfect my divorce, but it shall rest 
Till I conclude it with a counterbuffe 
Given to these noble rascals : Claudio, thankes : 
What comes of this, watch but my braine a 
little, 

393 Not. Emend. S. Qq assign this speech to Val. 
395 Valerio. Emend. Co. Qq, Balerio, which misled Do. into 
printing Bellanora. 



94 3il jfOOleSf [Act IV. 

And yee shall see, if like two partes in me 410 

I leave not both these gullers wits imbrierd ; 
Now I perceive well where the wilde winde sits, 
Heres gull for gull and wits at warre with wits. 
Exeunt \_Claudio and Cornelio.~\ 



Actus Quinti Scena Prima. 

[^ Street in Florence.~\ 

Rinaldo solus. 

^Rynaldo.'\ Fortune, the great commandresse 
of the world, 
Hath divers wayes to advance her followers : 
To some she gives honour without deserving, 
To other some deserving without honour, 
Some wit, some wealth, and some wit without 

wealth. 
Some wealth without wit, some nor wit nor 

wealth. 
But good smocke-faces, or some qualities 
^y nature without judgement, with the which 
They live in sensuall acceptation. 
And make show onely, without touche of sub- 
stance. 
My fortune is to winne renowne by gulling. 
Gostanzo, Darioto, and Cornelio, 
All which suppose in all their different kindes 
Their witts entyre, and in themselves no piece, 
All at one blow, my helmet yet unbruisde, 
I have unhorst, laid flat on earth for guls. 
Now in what taking poore Cornelio is 

\\ gulling, Qq, comma after ^a///ng-. 12 Qq, period after Cor«e//o. 



96 aili?oole0 [Actv. 

Betwixt his large divorce and no divorce, 

I long to see, and what he will resolve : 

I lay my life he cannot chew his meate, 20 

And lookes much like an ape had swallowed 

pilles ; 
And all this comes of bootelesse jealousie : 
And see where bootelesse jealousie appeares. 

Enter Cornel \io\ . 
He bourd him straight ; how now, Cornelio ? 
Are you resolv'd on the divorce, or no ? 15 

Cornelio. What 's that to you ? looke to your 
owne affaires. 
The time requires it ; are you not engag'd 
In some bonds forfeit for Valerio ? 

Ryn. Yes, what of that ? 

Cor. Why, so am I my selfe ; 

And both our dangers great ; he is arrested 3° 

On a recognizance by a usuring slave. 

Ryn. Arrested ? I am sorry with my hart. 
It is a matter may import me much ; 
May not our bayle suffize to free him, thinke 
you ? 

Cor. I thinke it may, but I must not be 
scene in't, 35 

Nor would I wish you, for we both are parties, 
And liker farre to bring our selves in trouble 
Then beare him out : I have already made 
Meanes to the officers to sequester him 



Scene L] 31 i?OOle0 97 

In private for a time, till some in secret 40 

Might make his father understand his state, 
Who would perhaps take present order for him 
Rather then suffer him t'endure the shame 
Of his imprisonment. Now, would you but goe 
And breake the matter closely to his father, 45 

(As you can wisely doo 't) and bring him to him. 
This were the onely way to save his credit. 
And to keepe off a shfowd blow from our selves. 

Ryn. I know his father will be moov'd past 
measure. 

Cor. Nay, if you stand on such nice cere- 
monies, 50 
Farewell our substance : extreame diseases 
Aske extreame remedies, better he should storme 
Some little time then we be beate for ever 
Under the horred shelter of a prison, 

Ryn. Where is the place ? 

Cor. Tis at the Halfe Moone Taverne ; 55 

Hast, for the matter will abide no staye. 

Ryn. Heaven send my speed be equall with 
my hast. Exit [^Rynaldo]. 

Cor. Goe, shallow scholler, you that make' 
all guls. 
You that can out-see cleere-ey'd jeolousie. 
Yet make this slight a milstone, where your braine 60 
Sticks in the midst amazd. This gull to him 
And to his fellow guller shall become 



98 aiifoolefif [Acxv. 

More bitter then their baiting of my humour : 
Heere at this taverne shall Gostanzo finde 
Fortunio, Darioto, Claudio, 65 

And amongst them, the ringleader, his sonne, 
His husband, and his Saint Valerio, 
That knowes not of what fashion dice are made, 
Nor ever yet lookt towards a red lettice, 
(Thinkes his blinde sire), at drinking and at dice, 70 
With all their wenches, and at full discover 
His owne grose folly and his sonnes distempers; 
And both shall know, (although I be no schol- 

ler) 
Yet I have thus much Latin as to say 
Jam sumus ergo pares. Exit [^Cornelio], 75 

[ScENA Secunda. 

A Room in the Half Moon Tavern."] 

Enter Valerio y Fortufiioy Claudio , Page^ Grat^iana], 
Gazetta, \and~\ Bellanora. A Drawer or two, 
setting a table. 

Valerio. Set me the table heere, we will shift 
roomes 
To see if Fortune will shift chances with us : 
Sit, ladies, sit ; Fortunio, place thy wench. 
And, Claudio, place you Dariotos mistresse. 
I wonder where that neate spruce slave becomes : 5 

71 With all. Qq, Withall. 



Scene 11] 31 ifOOlefil 99 

I thinke he was some barbers sonne, by th* masse ; 

Tis such a picked fellow, not a haire 

About his whole bulke but it stands in print. 

Each pinne hath his due place, not any point 

But hath his perfect tie, fashion, and grace ; lo 

A thing whose soule is specially imployde 

In knowing where best gloves, best stockings, 

wasecotes 
Curiously wrought, are solde ; sacks milleners 

shops 
For all new tyres and fashions, and can tell yee 
What new devices of all sorts there are, 15 

And that there is not in the whole Rialto 
But one new-fashion'd wast-cote, or one night- 
cap. 
One paire of gloves, pretty or well perfum'd ; 
And from a paire of gloves of halfe a crowne 
To twenty crownes will to a very scute ao 

Smell out the price : and for these womanly parts 
He is esteem'd a witty gentleman. 

Fortunio. See, where he comes. 
Enter Darioto. 

Dariotto. God save you, lovely ladies. 

Val, I, well said, lovely Paris, your wall eye 
Must ever first be gloting on mens wives ; 25 

You thinke to come upon us, being halfe drunke, 
And so to part the freshest man amongst us ; 
But you shall over-take us, He be sworne. 



100 aiiFOOto [AcrV. 

Dar. Tush, man, where are your dice ? Lets 

fall to them. 
Claudia . We have bin at am. Drawer, call 

for more. 30 

Val. First lets have wine, dice have no per- 
fect edge 
Without the liquid whetstone of the sirrope. 
For. True, and to welcome Darioto's late- 
nes. 
He shall (unpledged) carouze one crowned cup 
To all these ladies health. 

Dar. I am well pleasd. 35 

VaL Come on, let us varie our sweete time 
With sundry excercises. Boy, tabacco ! 
And, drawer, you must get us musique too ; 
Calls in a cleanly noyse, the slaves grow lowzy. 
Drawer. You shall have such as we can get 

you, sir. Exit \_Drawer'\. 40 

Dar. Let's have some dice, I pray thee : they 

are clenly. 
Val. Page, let mee see that leafe ! 
Page. It is not leafe, sir, 

Tis pudding cane tabacco. 

Val. But I meane 

Your linstock, sir, what leafe is that, I pray ? 
Page. I pray you see, sir, for I cannot read. 45 

42-44 It is . . . pray. Qq print this as 2 11. : It is . . . Ta- 
bacco ! But I . . . pray. 



Scene II.] 3il SfOOltH 1 01 

Fal. Sfoote, a rancke stincking satyre ; this 
had been 
Enough to have poysned everie man of us. 
Dar. And now you speake of that, my boy 
once lighted 
A pipe of cane tabacco with a peece 
Of a vild ballad, and He sweare I had 5° 

A singing in my head a whole weeke after. 
Fal. Well, th' old verse is, J potibus incipe 
io-c-um. 

Enter Drawer with wine and a cupp. 
Drawer, fill out this gentlemans carowse. 
And harden him for our societie. 

Dar. Well, ladies, heere is to your honourd 

healths. 55 

For. What, Dariotto, without hat or knee ? 
Val. Well said, Fortunio. O, y'are a rare 
courtier ! 
Your knee, good signior, I beseech your knee. 
Dar. Nay, pray you, lets take it by degrees, 
Valerio ; on our feete first, for this 6o 

Will bring's too soone upon our knees. 

Val. Sir, there 

Are no degrees of order in a taverne ; 
Heere you must, I charge yee, runne all a head ; 

59-62 Q prints this as three lines of prose : Nay . . . our | feete 
. . knees, | Sir . . . ta'verne. 
63 charge. Emend. S. Qq, chargd. 



102 aiiFooleg [actv. 

Slight, courtier, downe ; * 

I hope you are no elephant, you have joynts ! 65 
Dar. Well, sir, heere's to the ladies on my 

knees. 
Val. He be their pledge. 

Enter Gostanzo and Rinaldo \_behind~\. 
For. Not yet, Valerio, 

This hee must drinke unpledgd. 

Val. He shall not, I will give him this ad- 
vantage. 
Gostanzo [aside^. How now? whats heere ? 

are these the officers ? 7° 

Rynaldo \_aside\ . Slight, I would all were well. 

Enter Cornelia \behind~^ . 

Val. Heere is his pledge : 

Heere's to our common friend Cornelioes health. 

[Z)^r.] Health to Gazetta, poyson to her 

husband ! He kneeles, 

Cornelio [aside^ . Excellent guestes : these are 

my dayly guestes. 
Val. Drawer, make even th' impartiall skales 
of Justice, 75 

Give it to Claudio, and from him fill round. 
Come, Darioto, sett mee, let [the] rest 
Come in when they have done the ladyes right. 
Gost. [aside~\ . " Sett me " ! Doe you know 
what belongs to setting ? 

73 Dar. Emend, ed. Qq, C/au. See Notes, p. 136. 
77 t/ie. Emend, ed. Qq, mee. See Notes, p. 136. 



Scene II.] 31 i?OOlf0 IO3 

Ryn. [aside\ . What a dull slave was I to be 

thus guU'd ? 80 

Cor. [aside to Rynaldo'] . Why, Rinald, what 
meant you to intrap your friend, 
And bring his father to this spectacle ? 
You are a friend in deed ! 

Ryn. Tis verie good, sir ; 

Perhaps my friend, or I, before wee part, 
May make even with you. 

For. Come, lets sett him round. 85 

Fal. Doe so : at all ! A plague upon these 
dice. 
Another health ! Sfoote, I shall have no lucke 
Till I be druncke : come on, heere's to the com- 
fort 
The cavalier, my father, should take in mee 
If he now saw mee and would do me right. 90 

For. He pledge it, and his health, Valerio. 
Gost. [aside'j. Heere's a good husband. 
Ryn. [aside to Gostanzo'j . I pray you 

have patience, sir. 
Fa/. Now have at all, an 'twere a thousand 

pound. 
Gost. [advancing^. Hold, sir ! I barr the dice. 
Val. What, sir, are you there ? 

Fill's a fresh pottle ! by this light. Sir Knight, 95 
You shall do right. 

Enter Marc. Jnt\_onio~\. 
Gost. O thou ungratious villaine. 



104 jaiiFoole0 [actv. 

\VaL'\ Come, come, wee shall have you now 
thunder foorth 
Some of your thriftie sentences, as gravely: 
" For as much, Valerius, as every thing has time, 
and a pudding has two; yet ought not satisfac-ioo 
tion to swerve so much from defalcation of well 
dispos'd people as that indemnitie should preju- 
dice what securitie doth insinuate." A tryall, 
yet once againe. 

Marc. Heere's a good sight ! Y'are well en- 
countred, sir; 105 

Did I not tell you you 'd oreshoote your selfe 
With too much wisedome ? 

Val. Sir, your wisest do so. 

Fill the old man some wine. 

Gost. Heere's a good infant ! 

Marc. Why, sir? Ahlas, He wager with your 
wisedome 
His consorts drew him to it, for of him selfe no 
He is both vertuous, bashfull, innocent ; 
Comes not at cittie ; knowes no cittie art, 
But plies your husbandrie ; dares not view a 
wench. 

Val. Father, hee comes upon you. 

Gost. Heere's a sonne ! 

Marc. Whose wife is Gratiana now, I 

pray? 115 

97 Val, Emend. S Qq assign this speech to Gostanzo. 



Scene II.] ^l jfOOlt& 10 S 

Gost. Sing your old song no more, your 
braine's too short 
To reach into these pollicies. 

Marc. Tis true, 

Mine eye's soone blinded : and your selfe would 

say so, 
If you knew all. Where lodg'd your sonne last 

night ? 
Doe you know that with all your pollide ? 120 

Gost. Youle say he lodg'd with you, and did 
not I 
p'oretell you all this must for cullour sake 
Be brought about, onely to blinde your eyes ? 
Marc. By heaven, I chaunc't this morne, I 
know not why. 
To passe by Gratianas bed-chamber, 125 

And whom saw I fast by her naked side 
But your Valerio ? 

Gost. Had you not warning given ? 

Did I not bidd you watch my courtier well. 
Or hee would set a crest a your sonnes head ? 
Marc. That was not all, for by them on a 
stoole 130 

My Sonne sate laughing to see you so gull'd. 
Gost. Tis too too plaine ! 
Marc. Why, sir, do you suspect it 

The more for that ? 

118 eye i. Emend. S. Qq, eyes. 

132-133 Why, sir , . . (hat. Q prints as one line. 



io6 aiifoolefi? [actv. 

Gost. Suspect it ? Is there any 

So grosse a wittoll as, if t'were his wife, 
Would sit by her so tamelie ? 

Marc. Why not, sir, i35 

To blind my eyes ? 

Gost. Well, sir, I was deceiv'd. 

But I shall make it proove a deare deceipt 
To the deceiver. 

Ryn. Nay, sir, lets not have 

A new infliction set on an old fault : 
Hee did confesse his fault upon his knees, 140 

You pardned it, and swore twas from your hart. 

Gost. Swore, a great peece of worke ! The 
wretch shall know 
I have a daughter heere to give my land too ; 
He give my daughter all : the prodigall 
Shall not have one poore house to hide his head 

in. 145 

For. I humblie thanke you, sir, and vow all 
duetie 
My life can yeelde you. 

Gost. Why are you so thankfull ? 

For. For giving to your daughter all your lands, 
Who is my wife, and so you gave them mee. 

Gost. Better and better ! 

For. Pray, sir, be not moov'd ; 15° 

You drew mee kindlie to your house, and gave mee 

135-136 fVhy not . . . eyes. Qq print this as one line. 



Scene II.] 2il jfOO\t& 10/ 

Accesse to woe your daughter, whom I lov'd. 
And since (by honord manage) made my wife. 

Gost. Now all my choller flie out in your 
witts : 
Good trickes of youth, y'faith, no indecorum, 155 
Knights Sonne, knights daughter ; Marc. An- 
tonio, 
Give mee your hand, there is no remedie, 
Mariage is ever made by destenie. 

\_A I I applaud.'] 

Ryn. Scilence, my maisters, now heere all 
are pleas'd, 
Onelie but Cornelio, who lackes but perswasloni6o 
To reconcile himselfe to his faire wife : 
Good sir, will you (of all men our best speaker) 
Perswade him to receive her into grace ? 

Gost. That I will gladlie, and he shal be rul'd. 
Good Cornelio, I have heard of your wayward 165 
jelosie, and I must tell you plaine as a friend, 
y'are an asse, — you must pardon me, I knew 
your father — 

Ryn, Then you must pardon him indeed, sir. 

Gost, Understand mee: put case Dariottoiyo 
lov'd your wife, whereby you would seeme to 
refuse her; would you desire to have such a 
wife as no man could love but your selfe ? 

164 shal he. Qq, shalbe. 

165 Good Cornelio. Qq print as last words of 1. 164. 



io8 aiiFoolesf [actv. 

Marc. Answere but that, Cornelio. 

Gost, Understand mee : say Dariotto hath kistiys 
your wife, or perform'de other offices of that na- 
ture, whereby they did converse togeather at bedd 
and at boord, as friendes may seeme to doe — 

Marc. Marke but the "Now understand 
mee"! i8o 

Gost. Yet if there come no proofes but that 
her actions were cleanlle, or in discreete private, 
why t'was a signe of modestie : and will you 
blow the home your selfe, when you may keepe 
it to your selfe ? Goe to, you are a foole, under- 185 
stand mee ! 

Val. Doe understand him, Cornelio. 

Gost. Nay, Cornalio, I tell you againe, I knew 
your father ; hee was a wise gentleman, and so 
was your mother: mee thinkes I see her yet, 3190 
lustie stoute woman, bore great children, — you 
were the verie skundrell of am all ; but let that 
passe. As for your mother, shee was wise, a 
most flippant tongue she had, and could set out 
her taile with as good grace as any shee in Flor-195 
ence, come cut and long-tayle ; and she was 
honest enough too. But yet, by your leave, 
she would tickle Dob now and then as well as 
the best on am ; by Jove, it's true, Cornelio, I 
speake it not to flatter you : your father knew it 200 

182 in discreete. Emend, ed. Qq, indiscreete. 



Scene II.] 31 iFOOle0 IO9 

well enough, and would he do as you do, thinke 
you ? set rascalles to undermine her or looke to 
her water, (as they say) ? No, when he saw 
twas but her humour (for his owne quietnesse 
sake) hee made a backe-doore to his house for 205 
convenience, gott a bell to his fore doore, and 
had an odd fashion in ringing by which shee and 
her mayde knew him, and would stand talking 
to his next neighbour to prolong time, that all 
thinges might be ridde clenly out a the way be- 210 
fore he came, for the credite of his wife. This 
was wisedome now for a mans owne quiet. 

Marc. Heere was a man, Cornelio! 

Gost. What, I say ! Young men thinke old 
men are fooles, but old men know young men 215 
are fooles. 

Cor. Why, harke you, you two knights ; doe 
you thinke I will forsake Gazetta ? 

Gost. And will you not ? 

Cor. Why theer 's your wisedome; why did 220 
I make shew of divorce, thinke you ? 

Marc. Pray you why, sir ? 

Cor. Onelie to bridle her stout stomack : 
and how did I draw on the cullour for my di- 
vorce ? I did traine the woodcocke Dariotto 225 
into the net, drew him to my house, gave him 
opportunitie with my wife (as you say my father 
dealt with his wives friendes) onely to traine him 



no aili?OOle0 [AcrV. 

in : let him alone with my wife in her bed- 
chamber; and sometimes founde him a bedd^so 
with her, and went my way backe again soft- 
lie, onelie to draw him into the pitte. 

Gost. This was well handled in deed, Cornelio. 

Marc. I, marrie, sir, now I commend your 
wisedome. 

Cor. Why, if I had been so minded as you 235 
thinke, I could have flung his pantable downe 
the staires, or doone him some other disgrace : 
but I winckt at it, and drew on the good foole 
more and more, onelie to bring him within my 
compasse. 240 

Gost. Why, this was pollicie in graine. 

Cor. And now shal the world see I am as 
wise as my father. 

Val. Is 't come to this ? then will I make a 
speech in praise of this reconcilement, including 245 
therein the praise and honor of the most fash- 
ionable and autenticall HORNE : stande close, 
gentles, and be silent. He gets into a chaire. 

Gost. Come on, lets heare his wit in this pot- 
able humour. 250 

Val. The course of the world (like the life 
of man) is said to be devided into severall ages : 
as wee into infancie, childhood, youth, and so 
forward to old-age •, so the world into the 
golden age, the silver, the brasse, the iron, the 255 



Scene II] ^l jfOCltH 1 1 1 

leaden, the wooden ; and now into this present 
age, which wee tearme the horned age : not that 
but former ages have injoyde this benefite as 
well as our times ; but that in ours it is more 
common, and neverthelesse pretious. It is said 260 
that in the golden age of the world the use 
of gold was not then knowne — an argument of 
the simplicitie of that age ; least therefore suc- 
ceeding ages should hereafter impute the same 
fault to us which wee lay upon the first age, 265 
that wee, living in the horned age of the world, 
should not understand the use, the vertue, the 
honour, and the very royaltie of the home, I will 
in briefe sound the prayses thereof that they who 
are alreadie in possession of it may beare their 270 
heades aloft as beeing proud of such loftie acow- 
trementes : and they that are but in possibilitie 
may be ravisht with a desire to be in possession. 
A trophey so honorable, and unmatchably 
powerful! that it is able to raise any man from 275 
a beggar to an emperours fellow, a dukes fellow, 
a noble-mans fellow, aldermans fellow ; so glori- 
ous, that it deserves to be worne (by most opin- 
ions) in the most conspicuous place about a man. 
For what worthier crest can you beare then the 280 
home ? which if it might be seene with our 
mortall eyes, what a wonderfull spectacle would 
there be, and how highly they would ravish the 



112 aiifoolefif [actv. 

beholders ! But their substance is incorporall, 
not falling under sence, nor mixt of the grosseiSs 
concretion of elementes, but a quintessence be- 
yond them, a spirituall essence invisible and 
everlasting. 

And this hath been the cause why many men 
have called their beeing in question, whether 290 
there be such a thing in rerum natura^ or not; 
because they are not to be scene : as though 
nothing were that were not to be scene. Who 
ever saw the winde ? Yet what wonderfull 
efFectes are scene of it. It drives the cloudes,295 
yet no man sees it : it rockes the house, beares 
downe trees, castles, steeples, yet who sees it? 
In like sort does your home : it swelles the 
forehead, yet none sees it ; it rockes the cradle, 
yet none sees it, so that you plainely perceive 300 
sence is no judge of essence. The moone to 
any mans sence seemes to be horned; yet who 
knowes not the moone to be ever perfectly 
round. So likewise your heades seeme ever to 
be round when in deed they are oftentimes 305 
horned. For their originall, it is unsearchable. 
Naturall they are not : for there is [no] beast 
borne with homes more then with teeth. 
Created they were not, for Ex nihilo nihil fit. 

307 li no beau. Emend, ed. Qq, there is Beast. S, Where 
is beast ? 



Scene n.] Sil ifOOletf II3 

Then you will aske mee, how came they into the 310 
world ? I know not ; but I am sure women 
brought them into this part of the world, how- 
soever some doctors are of opinion that they 
came in with the Divell: and not unlike; for, as 
the Divell brought sinne into the worlde, but theses 
woman brought it to the man, so it may very 
well be that the Divell brought homes into the 
world ; but the woman brought them to the 
man. 

For their power it is generall over the world : z^o 
no nation so barbarous, no countrey so proude, 
but doth equall homage to the home. Europa 
when shee was carried through the sea by the 
Saturnian bull, was said (for feare of falling) to 
have held by the home : and what is this but a 325 
plaine shewing to us that all Europe, which 
took name from that Europa, should likewise 
hold by the home. So that I say it is univer- 
sall over the face of the world, general over 
the face of Europe, and common over the face 33° 
of this countrey. What cittie, what towne, what 
village, what streete, nay what house, can quit 
it selfe of this prerogative ? I have read that 
the lion once made a proclamation through all 
the forrest, that all horned beastes should de-33S 
part foorthwith upon paine of death. If this 

336 Europe. Emend. Do. Qq, Europa. 



114 ^liFoolesf [actv. 

proclamation should be made through our For- 
rest, Lord, what pressing, what running, what 
flying, would there be even from all the parts 
of it! he that had but a bunch of flesh in his 34° 
head would away : and some, foolishly fearefull, 
would imagine the shadow of his eares to be 
homes : ahlas, how desart would this forrest be 
left! 

To conclude : for there force it is irrenitable,345 
for were they not irrenitable, then might eyther 
propernesse of person secure a man, or wisedome 
prevent am, or greatnesse exempt, or riches re- 
deeme them ; but present experience hath taught 
us that in this case all these stand in no steade 1350 
for we see the properst men take part of them, 
the best wits cannot avoide them (for then 
should poets be no cuckolds), nor can money 
redeeme them, for then would rich men fine for 
their homes as they do for offices: but this is 355 
held for a maxime, that there are more rich 
cuckolds then poore. Lastly, for continuance 
of the home, it is undeterminable till death : 
neither doe they determine with the wives death 
(howsoever ignorant writers holde opinion they 360 
doe) ; for as when a knight dies, his ladie still 
retaines the title of ladie ; when a company is 

345 and 346 irrenitable. Emend, ed., suggested hy New Eng- 
lish Dictionary. Qq, irrevitable. 



Scene II.] 31 Jf 00100 II5 

cast, yet the captaine still retaines the title of 
captaine; so though the wife die by whom this 
title came to her husband, yet by the curtesies^s 
of the city, he shal be a cuckold during life, let 
all ignorant asses prate what they hst. 

Gost. Notable wag ! come, sir, shake hands 

with him, 
In whose high honour you have made this 

speech. 
Marc. And you, sir, come, joyne hands, 

y' are one amongst the. 37o 

Gost. Very well done ; now take your severall 

wives. 
And spred like wilde-geese, though you now 

grow tame: 
Live merily together and agree. 
Homes cannot be kept off with jealousie. 

366 ibal be. Qq, shalbe. 



FINIS. 



EPILOGUE 

Since all our labours are as you can like^ 
We all submit to you ; nor dare presume 
To thinke ther's any reall worth in them : 
Sometimes feastes please the cookes^ and not the 

guestes ; 
Sometimes the guestes^ and curious cookes contemne 

them. 
Our dishes we intirely dedicate 
To our kinde guestes., but since yee differ so., 
Some to like onely mirth without taxations., 
Sojne to count such workes trifles^ and such like ; 
We can but bring you meate., and set you stooles., 
And to our best cheere say you all are ( ) welcome. 

II ( ) -welcome. A B. M. (2 copies), Bod. (Malone), and 
B. P. L. have ( ). Drummond and Dyce lack it. 



0ott0 to ai f OOlClS 

For the meaning of single tvords see the Glossary. 

2. Actors. The name of Kyte, the scrivener, does not appear 
in the text of the play, where he is consistently mentioned as 
a notary. The name of the page occurs once only, iii, 236. See 
Notes ad loc. 

3. PrologUS. This prologue was apparently written for the 
first production of ^/ Fooles at the Blackfriars Theatre. It had previ- 
ously been performed at the Rose by the Admiral's Men, for whom 
Henslowe had purchased it on July 2, 1599. Whatever its success 
may have been, and it is worth noting that Chapman's first and far 
inferior comedy had proved a very successful investment for Hen- 
slowe,^ it is plain that the author stood somewhat in awe of the 
more elegant and critical audience that gathered at the Blackfriars. 
This audience delighted especially in personal satire j it was before 
them that Jonson's Cynthia'' s Re-vels and Poetaster were produced. 
Chapman's own play, Sir Gyles Goosecappe,'^ previously performed at 
this theatre, had contained a strong dash of this "personal applica- 
tion," and he seems to have feared, no doubt with good reason, that 
such a reversion to *' merely comicall and harmlesse jests " as ^/ 
Fooles would fail to find favour with the audience. The prologue is 
in effect, then, a plea for suspension of judgement. 

3, 14. Eupolis and Cratinus : Greek dramatists, of the 
age of Pericles, famous for the bitter personal satire of their comedies. 

4, 24. panegyrick splene : the spleen in Chapman's day 
was supposed to be the seat of various emotions, not of ill-humour 
only. Cf. The Maid^ Tragedy, iii, ii, 270, The phrase here means 
" humour of applause." 

4,27. mistery. "Mystery" has here its modern meaning, 
** strange secret," as often in Shakespeare. 

1 Henslowe's Diarji^ inf. Feb. 12, 16, 19, Z2, 26, Apr. 15, 26, May 3, ij, 
18, June J, 25, July 5, Nov. 6, I2, Dec. 2, 10, 23, 1596. Jan. 15, 25, March 
14, Apr. 1,1597. 

2 See as to date note on p. ix of Biography. 



ii8 0Ott& 

4, 28. united heades : the audience, particularly that part of 
it which sat upon the stage. 

4, 29. the stage : the position on the stage assumed in private 
theatres by the gallants of the time. For their behaviour see Dek- 
ker, Gu/Is Hornbook, chap. vi. 

4, 30. other audience : those in the pit and boxes. 

4, 34. merit . . . contents. The merit (ofa play) has little 
or nothing to do with the pleasure it gives most of the audience ; 
'* contents " is here a plural of the abstract noun, meaning " satisfac- 
tion," '* pleasure." 

4, 35. Auriculas . . . habet ? Persius, Sat. i,l. 121. 

5, I. one selfe cause : one and the same cause. 

6, 38. He : instead of " him " for the sake of emphasis. 

6, 40. He . . . home : Fortunio, unable to obtain his love, 
wears the willow : Valerio, as a married man, is predestined, accord- 
ing to Rinaldo's cynical wit, to wear the horn, :. e. to be a cuckold. 

7, 44. And what . . . quintessence : Chapman possibly 

had Marlowe's famous apostrophe to beauty (1 Tamburlaine, v, i, 
160-173) in his mind while writing this line. 

7, 47. a COUSOning picture : *' It is a pretty art that in a 
pleated paper and table furrowed and indented men make one picture 
to represent several faces — that being viewed from one place or stand- 
ing, did shew the head of a Spaniard, and from another the head of 
an ass." (^Humane Industry , 1661, p. 76 ; quoted by Mr. Toilet in 
a note on Tivelfth Night, v, i, 224, in Johnson and Steeven's Shake- 
speare, 1778.) This reference I owe to Collier (Select Collection 
of Old Plays, V. 4, p. 112). 

7,51. and "would . . . all. Would that women were no 
worse than brittle. 

7, 55. made me happy : esteemed me fortunate. 

7-8, 65-78. I vowe . . . US'd. Several reminiscences of 
Juvenal occur in this diatribe, f^ide Sat. vi, il. 167-8, 462-3, 
474-85. Cf. also Monsieur D^OIi've, i, ii (Chapman's Dramatic 
Works, Pearson, London, 1873, vol. i, p. 199). 

8-9, 80-90, I read . . . serpent. This passage seems a 
reminiscence of Herodotus, Book 11, 65-74. The "painted 
fowle " is probably the phoenix, which Herodotus did not see ** ex- 
cept in painting" (§ 73). 



iliotesf 119 

9, 97-1 10. I tell thee Love . . . divine discourse : 

Collier [History of English Dramatic Poetry, vol, 3, p. 257, n.) as- 
serts that '* the whole thought and some of the expressions are here 
borrowed from a madrigal by Andrea Navagero, which is inserted in 
Domenichi's collection of Rime Di-verse, Venice, 1546, beginning — 
Leggiadre donne, che quella bellezza 
Che natura vi diede, &c. 

This poem occurs on p. 98, vol. i, of Rime Di-verse. It seems to 
me to have only a general resemblance to the passage in A2 Fooles. 

ID, 117. parle : a dissyllable. 

II, 148. Machevilian : the name of the great Florentine 
was at this time a by-word in England for an unscrupulous intriguer. 
Chapman uses " Machevilian" both as noun and adjective. 

11,153. canst skill of: understandest. *< Skill " is the now 
obsolete verb. 

11, 156. tabacco shops : ** It should be observed that the 
houses of druggists (tobacconists) were not merely furnished with 
tobacco, but with conveniences for smoking it. Every well fre- 
quented shop was an academy of this ' noble art,' where professors 
regularly attended to initiate the country aspirant." GifFord's note 
to Jonson's Alchemist, i, i (p. 38). A knowledge of the proper 
method of * ' drinking tobacco ' ' was an indispensable accomplish- 
ment of the gallants of the day. Barnaby Riche (Honestie of this 
Age, 1 614) joins tobacco-houses with ale-houses and brothels much 
as Chapman does here. 

12, 164. gentlewoman : trisyllabic, as often in Elizabethan 
poetry. 

12, 175. Sure twas my SOnne: this accidental discovery 
of Gostanzo's is the moving cause of the whole plot, since Rinaldo's 
assertion that Gratiana was Fortunio's wife and the whole subsequent 
entanglement springs from it. It compares favourably as a piece of 
stage-device with the wholly unexpected impudence with which in 
the Heautontimorumenos Syrus introduces Bacchis to his master's 
house under the pretence that she is Clinia's mistress. Chapman 
may have taken a hint from the Adelphi, where Demea surprises 
his son in the music girl's company. 

13, 193. Indeede he's one, etc. : Gostanzo's pride in his 
son's eloquence resembles that of Demea. {Adelphi, iii, iii, 58.) 



1 20 jl^otesf 

13, 195-196. What thrifty . . . knowledge : cf. 

Syrus's report of the scolding Ctesipho administered to Aeschinus. 
{Adelphiy III, iii, 50-56.) 

14, 199-200. respect . . . riches : regard riches as the 
true, or first, wife. 

14, 213-215. What a difference . . . you thus ! This 

speech is almost directly borrowed from the AJelphi, iii, iii, 37- 
42. In Gostanzo's reply Chapman uses a speech of Demea's earlier 
in the Adelphi (1, ii, 14-16). 

^5> ^33- ■wise . . . Sonne : Collier retains the reading 
**wife" of the quartos. It is, however, an evident misprint. 
Gostanzo's wife is nowhere mentioned, and Rinaldo has just been 
praising Valerio's wisdom. 

17, 260-261. buildes . . . choyce : is not grounded upon 
the goodness of his choice. 

17, 263. poore : in the Adelphi^ iv, vi, lo-ii, Demea in 
like manner urges the poverty of Pamphila as an objection to her 
marriage with Aeschinus. 

17, 265-266. have in her . . . disparagement: has 

made choice of a wife whose birth and virtues make her his equal. 
" Disparagement" has here its original meaning 5 see Glossary. 

17, 270. What should I doe ? Marc. Antonio's easy and 
loving temper in this scene corresponds to that of Menedemus in 
the Heautontimorumenos^ iii, i, when Chremes tells him of his son's 
infatuation for Bacchis. 

18, 275. You ope him doores : cf. Heautontimorumenosy 
III, i, 72. " Quantam fenestram ad nequitiam patefeceris." 

18, 278-80. knights competency . . . begger: this 
prediction is borrowed from the Heautontimorumenos, in, i, where 
Chremes foretells the ruin of Menedemus by the extravagance of 
Bacchis. Chapman occasionally preserves the very phrases of the 
original, thus 1. 284 corresponds to Heautontimorumenos, in, i, 54 : 
** Sic me di amabunt, ut me tuarum miseritumst. " 

19,301. want of misery : miserable poverty. 

19, 306. runne into the warres: an adaptation from the 
Heautontimorumenosy i, i, 47-65, where the harsh rebukes of 
Menedemus to his son for his intrigue with Antiphila led to the 
young gentleman's flight from home and his enlisting in the Persian 
army. 



il^oteflf 121 

19, 316. Padoa : apparently at this time the most famous in 
England of all Italian universities. The references to it in Eliza- 
bethan drama are innumerable. In May-Day Chapman introduces 
a foolish student of Padua come to Venice to learn the fashions of 
a town-gallant. 

23, 390- eld : Collier changes the Quarto reading "eld" to 
* ' old ' ' in order to make the passage correspond literally with Go- 
stanzo's speech, 1. 315. There seems to me no need to insist upon 
such scrupulous exactness in Rinaldo's speech. 

25, 32. with his best: by all possible means. 

26, 46, 47. ayre . . • cold: cf. Mother Bombie, in, iii, 16. 

27, 68. Gra. It seems plain from the following speech of 
Valerio that he is answering a remark of his wife. Hence this 
speech should belong to Gratiana. The phrase, '* we shall breake," 
moreover, meaning "we shall be separated by your father's anger," 
is much more appropriate to her than to Fortunio. Several 
speeches are misassigned in the Quarto. Cf. in, i, 469, iv, 393, 
V, ii, 97. 

27, 69. jealous espiall. AH copies of the Quarto read 
lelosie Spy-all, which Collier interprets as an appositive phrase, 
"jealousy, spy-all." This, however, seems very awkward. Shep- 
herd's emendation "jealous spy-all" suggested to me what I be- 
lieve to be the true reading "jealous espiall," from which the 
corruption in the text might easily proceed. Dr. Bradley suggests 
" jealouse spiall." 

27, 75. rascole . . . mace : a bailiff, or sergeant, with 
his official staff. 

27, 78. cals : " Nature " understood from the preceding line 
is the subject, — a not uncommon construction in Chapman. 

28, 87-88. what cause . . . loves : what good cause 

my profound sagacity gives for you all to love me. 

28-29, 94-95. what rage ... for her: what anger 

against her would seize her father's mind. 

30, 1x8. lye at racke and manger: live at ease. See 

English Dialect Dictionary, sub " rack." 

30-31, 138-139. not touch her . . . my father! almost 

a translation of Heautontimorumenos, 11, iii, 135-6. 

31, 144. conferme: The reading of the Quarto " conseave," 



122 jliotefif 



though accepted by Collier and Shepherd, who read "conceive," 
does not make good sense. Following a suggestion by Dr. Brad- 
ley I read "conferme," from which in MS. " conseave " might 
easily be derived. Dr. Bradley calls my attention to a passage in 
Shirley, The Doubtful Heir, v, ii (Dyce's edition, vol. 4, p. 344), 
And 1 have satisfied these lords so well 
They are confirm'd in your just claim and person, 

where the meaning is exactly the same. 

33, 20. olde acquaintance : this is another instance of the 
influence of the Adelphi. In the Heautontimorumenos the acquaint- 
ance between the fathers is quite recent. 

33, 28. all your amities : friendship with all of you, or 
you all as friends. 

34, 53. saw ... a grate: saw through a grating in a 
door, /. e. saw at distance only, was not intimate with. 

35, 67. to shift . . . contentment : to satisfy and get 

rid of him. Unless some word like "hence" has been dropped 
from the line, "contentment" must be accented on the first syl- 
lable. Jonson ( The English Grammar, chap, vii) asserted that all 
trisyllabic nouns are accented on the first syllable, 

36, Enter Fortunion, etc. : this admirable scene, in 
which Gostanzo receives his son's secret wife thinking her the 
wife of his old friend's son, is Chapman's own invention and has 
no counterpart in either the Heautontimorumenos or the Adelphi. 
The feigned clownishness of Valerio and his reluctance to kiss his 
own wife is very admirable fooling. 

39, 153. of his house: Collier changes without comment 
to "to his house," which probably is the sense. It is, however, 
an uncommon usage, and we might perhaps understand "of his 
house " as modifying " Dutchesse." 

40, 163. drinking tobacco : at' this time the ordinary 
phrase for smoking. In E-very Man out of his Humour (iii, iii), 
we have a picture of a gallant courting his mistress between whiffs 
of a pipe. Rosalind {^As You Like It, iv, ii, 73-75) recommends 
a better way to the " gravelled " lover. 

40, 172-76. accrostique . . . Blancke Verse: to display 
his versatility as a poet Gostanzo reels off the names of some popular 
forms of verse. " Exordion," i.e Exordium, is properly speaking 



not a form of verse, but merely an introduction whether in prose or 
metre. By *< Sonnets in Doozens" he probably means songs or 
poems of twelve lines in length, such as Sidney's Sonnet liv (Gro- 
sart. Complete Poems of Philip Sidney) or Shakespeare's Sonnet 
cxxvi, '* Quatorzains " was a frequent technical designation of the 
true sonnet (see Lee, Eli'zabethan Sonnets, p. xxxiii) . ' * Sdruciolla " 
are the triple, or dactylic, rhymes called sdrucciolo, or slippery, in 
Italian, Sir John Harrington's translation of Orlando Furioso, 1 59 1 , 
in which such rhymes were lavishly employed, seems to have pro- 
voked considerable discussion. See his defence of his action in An 
Apologie of Poetry, prefixed to the translation [reprinted in Hasle- 
wood. Ancient Critical Essay s\ 

41, 184-186. You let him . . . y 'faith: a reminiscence 
and elaboration of Micio's comment on Demea's conduct toward his 
son [Adelphi, i, i, 39-40). 

41-42, 198-201. made . . . workt : correct syntax de- 
mands that these verbs should be participles in composition with 
" have " (1. 193), but the numerous infinitives with which they are 
surrounded seem in the Quarto to have attracted them from their 
proper form. Chapman himself may have been responsible for the 
loose construction. 

42, 206. Of thine: dependent upon "the wit," under- 
stood. 

42, 208. th' evening crownes the daie : an old pro- 
verbial saying (vide Hazlitt, English Pro-verbs, p. 380). 
42, 210. in a string: to be led about at will. 

42. Enter Gazetta sowing : this stage-direction seems 
to show that the front scene in this act was conceived of as a 
street. At the rear two doors led into the houses of Gostanzo and 
Cornelio. After the exit of Gostanzo into his house and the sub- 
sequent entrance of Rinaldo and Valerio therefrom, Gazetta enters 
from her husband's house to take the air and sew before his door. 
I am inclined to think that all scenes in the play are laid in the 
same place, a street before the houses of Gostanzo and Cornelio, 
except the last, which is laid in a tavern. 

43, 226. swagger : apparently a new bit of slang about the 
close of the sixteenth century. In his address "To the Un- 
derstander " prefixed to Achilles Shield (1598), Chapman says: 



2^4 iPote0 



'* Swaggering is a new word among them [the captious young 
readers of the day] and round headed custom gives it privilege with 
much imitation, being created as it were by a natural Prosopopeia 
without etymology or derivation." 

43, 230. this light : the sword which he here draws. 

43» 233-^34- pancie . . . columbine: Mr. Fleay 

{^Chronicle of English Drama, vol. i, p. 58) sees here a palpable 
imitation of the famous scene in Hamlet (iv, v) where Ophelia 
distributes flowers. The resemblance consists in the mention of 
pansy and columbine and in the meaning assigned or imputed to 
these flowers in both plays. Inasmuch as the columbine is not men- 
tioned in the first Quarto of Hamlet, but appears in Q2 (1604), 
Fleay holds that the present passage of Al Fooles indicates a re- 
vision of this play some time after 1603. I do not feel that this 
is a strong argument. The language of flowers was probably as 
familiar to Chapman as to Shakespeare, and Chapman has his own 
reasons for making the jealous Cornelio refer to the pansy, and to 
the columbine, the cuckold's flower. 

44, 240. adores . . . adhornes : the second of these 
words used in the sense of "plants horns on" appears to be a 
coinage of Chapman's. This play on "adores" and "adhornes" 
appears again in T/te Widoiv'' s Tears, i, i (vol. 3, p. 9). 

44, 252. Thinke . . . netts : the phrases "to dance, to 
hide, or to march, in a net" were in proverbial use in Elizabethan 
English to denote an ineffectual attempt at concealment. Cf. King 
Henry V, i, ii, 93, and The Spanish Tragedy, iv, iv, 118, with 
Professor Boas' s note on the latter passage. The phrase is awkwardly 
applied here, and it might be better to read as Mr. P. A. Daniel 
suggests : " Think that you dance in nets." 

46, 281. Play Menelaus: the allusion is to the hospitable 
reception given by Menelaus to Paris, -vide Ovid, Heroides : Epis- 
tola XVI, 127 : 

Excipit hospitio, vir me tuus, etc. 

46,282. well-taught, wayting-woman : d. Monsieur 
D Oli-ve, V, i (vol. i, p. 245) : " You may be waiting-woman 
to any dame in Europe : that Petrarch does good offices ... As 
when any lady is in private courtship with this or that gallant, your 
Petrarch helps to entertaine time." 



Jliote0 125 

46, 291. looking to . . . marker by taking care of the 
mark at which they aim (/. e. Gazetta's honour) and so prevent- 
ing their touching it. 

47» 303- lether jerkins : the buff coats which were at this 
time the regular dress of the sergeants who arrested debtors. 

47, 306. Forget his day : forget the day on which a debt, 
or bill, came due, 

47, 307. corporals: the military term is here applied jest- 
ingly to the sergeant's underlings. 

48, 334. besides their bookes: beyond their briefs, or 
without their notes, and therefore incoherently, 

48,336-38. that same vayne . . . grossest: this 

speech is probably a ' ' gag ' ' inserted during the revision of the play, 
with reference to the so-called '* War of the Theatres." *' Your 
best poet" may perhaps refer to Jonson, the leading poet at this 
time for the Blackfriars company. 

49, 346-347. put a mad spleene . . . pigeon : cf. 

Hamlet^ 11, ii, 605. 

50, 370-371. Of all mens wits . . . Valerioes : the 

trick played upon Valerio in this scene is responsible for the de- 
velopement of the under-plot, for which the ground has already 
been laid by the revelation of Cornelio's jealousy. It might be ob- 
jected that such a fool as Cornelio was not likely to make a fool of 
Valerio. But Chapman seems to believe, with Lincoln, that " you 
can fool all of the people some of the time. ' ' Each of the leading 
characters in the play is ' ' gulled ' ' in turn by being attacked on 
the side of his '* humour," or ruling passion, and Valerio's ruling 
passion is pride in his gallant accomplishments. 

50, 378. th' Italian: Chapman forgets with characteristic 
Elizabethan carelessness that the scene of the play is laid in Italy, 

50, 381, against the hayre : literally, ''against the grain, 
contrary to one's inclination." Here, however, it must mean 
rather " in spite of a seeming impossibility." 

51, 385. judge um lyte : Collier noted that the reading 
of the Quarto was unintelligible and proposed to read " 'em light." 
It is more probable that "lyte" is the old adjective = little, and 
that "on" is a misprint for "um" = " 'em," as often in this 
play. 



126 0ottii 

51, 395. Toucht a theorbo: "touch" was the proper 
technical term for playing upon a stringed instrument, 

51, 398. husband : here in the sense of an economical or 
frugal man, with an implied pun on the speaker's position as a 
"husband" = husbandman. 

51. untrusses : loosens the *' points " which tied his hose to 
his doublet, so as to gain more freedom for his capers. 

52, 406-407. Foote, will you . . . Italy ? All previous 

editions give this speech to Dariotto, but it would be quite out of 
keeping with the situation for Dariotto to abuse Valerio's voice at 
this point. On the other hand the speech is an exact counterpart 
of 11. 383 and 394 in its "pride that apes humility." 

52, 409-410. naturall . . . naturall sonne : in the 

first line ' * naturall " ^ " a gift of nature ' ' (cf. Tivelfth Nighty 
1, iii, 29-30) ; in the second " natural " = " legitimate." Valerio 
means that Gostanzo would renounce a son with such gifts as his, 
as being no true son of such a father. 

55, 14. the ivory gate : the gate through which in Greek 
mythology deluding dreams were said to come. Vide Aeneid^ vi, 
893-96, and Odyssey, xix, 562. 

55, 20-22. My deerest . . . free-hold : this embrace of 

Valerio corresponds to the caress which Clitipho bestows on Bacchis 
in the Heautontimorumenos, iii, iii. There as here the action is 
observed and misinterpreted by the father. 

55, 28. last day : this phrase gives the time of this scene and 
shows that a night has intervened between Acts 11 and iii. The 
same interval occurs at the same place in the Heautontimorumenos. 

55> 30-31- weare . . . moderne fashion: i.e. adorned 
with horns. 

56, 36-37. your sister . . . here: the reason for the 
transfer of the mistress, or, as here, the secret wife, from one house 
to another is rather more satisfactory in this play than in the Heau- 
tontimorumenos. Nothing could have been likelier than that Chremes, 
after the rebuke he inflicted on Clitipho for taking liberties with a 
friend's mistress {Heautontimorumenos, iii, iii), should have ordered 
the too tempting lady to be removed from his house. But he fails 
to do so, and the transfer is arranged later by Syrus for quite other 
than moral reasons. 



iliotes; 127 

56, 53. the setting on: /. e. of a pair of horns. Probably 
spoken with a gesture to the head. 

58, 83-84 to say . . . your sonnes wife: this device 

of telling the truth with intent to deceive is the cardinal point on which 
both the Heautontimorumenos and Al Fooles turn. In the former, 
however, the intriguer, Syrus, does not tell Chremes of his device 
until the transfer has been effected. Professor Koeppel [SiueUen und 
Forschungen, Heft 82, pp. 6, 7) thinks that Chapman in the haste 
of his adaptation has sinned against the natural character develope- 
ment of Gostanzo in permitting him to commit the ' * incredible 
folly " of believing that Marc. Antonio would receive Gratiana as 
Valerio's wife. But Chapman's Al Fooles is no hasty adaptation, 
and his departures from the original are usually carefully considered. 
It is Gostanzo's contempt for the "honest, simple knight" that 
makes him believe Marc. Antonio will swallow even this "gross 
gob. ' ' In fact Gostanzo is gulled through his master passion, self- 
conceit and contempt of his neighbour. 

59, 91. in sadnesse: in earnest, truly. 

59, 94. swallow . . . gudgion ? take the bait. 

59, 107. sing the cuckooes note : be a cuckold. 
59-60, 109-110. what would . . . counsell ? Cf. 

Heautontimorumenos, iii, iii, 30—31 : 

quid ilium porro credis facturum . . . 
Nisi eum . . . servas, castigas, mones ? 

60, 115. Out of . . . hands: when unhelped by Fortune. 
60, 119. grope . . . trowt: " Grope or tickle, a kind of 

fishing, by putting one's hand into the water-holes where fish lye, 
and tickling them about the gills 5 by which means they '11 become 
so quiet, that a man may take them in his hand." (Halliwell, Diet. 
Rust.) " Catching trout in this manner is an old . . . method of 
poaching, . . . can only be practised . . . when the water is 
exceedingly low." (Furness, note on TivelftA Night, 11, v, 23.) 
60, 123. Even that . . . fooles: even that small quantity 
of wit which fools generally possess. 

60, 130. his: Dariotto's. 

61, 134. procure her quiet : make her peace. 
6i> 139- yelloTv fury: jealousy. 

61, 148. And who . . . keepers: a translation of the well- 



128 jliotes; 

known phrase of Juvenal, quis custodiet ipsos custodesf {Sat. vi, 

347-8.) 

61, 152. keepers fee: cf. an old rhyme quoted in Scott's 
fVooditocky chap. 3 1: 

The haunch to thee, 

The breast to me. 

The hide and the homes for the keeper's fee, 

and 3 King Henry VI, iii, i, 22. 

62, 182. in her of all that name : Collier proposes to read 
*' in her all of that name " 5 but the meaning is clear as it stands. 

63, 188. Mercuric: Mercury, the god, among other things, 
of eloquence. 

63, 200. set to : impressed. 

63, 207-208. high set . . . taken downe? Ifsheishigh 

pitched, excited, are you not correspondingly dejected ? 

64, 219. bracke : a broken bit bearing the same relation to 
a whole piece of velvet as the paring to the cheese. Cf. Chapman's 
Odyssey, xvii, 249. Stier points out that the whole passage is a 
parody of a passage in Lyly's Euphues. (Lyly, PForks, ed. by Bond, 
vol. I, p. 179.) 

64, 230-231. gardens neere the towne : Collier in his 

note on this line refers to a passage in Stubbes' The Anatomy of Abuses, 
to the effect that gardens in the suburbs were used as trysting-places 
by city wives and their lovers. 

64, 236. Curio : this is the only place where the page's name 
is mentioned. I am inclined to suspect that it is not his name in 
this instance, but an abbreviation of '* Mercurio," cf. 1. 188. In 
this case whoever prepared the play for the press may have misunder- 
stood its significance and, taking it as the page's name, included it 
in the Dramatis Personae. 

65, 252. the law ... no wils: by the Acts of 32 Hen. 
VII, c. I (1540), and 34 and 35 Hen. VIII, c. 5, married women, 
along with infants and idiots, were incapacitated to devise real estate. 

At common law a married woman in England could not, with a 
few exceptions, make a will without her husband's license and consent 
until the Married Women' s Property Act, 1882. 

65,267. superannated : Collier reads ** superannuated," 
but " superannate " occurs in Elizabethan English. 



0ott& 129 

66, 268, men of their hands : men of valour, here no 
doubt in the wars of love. 

67, 301. lips perfumde : one of the marks of a courtier in 
Chapman's day. Cf. As Tou Like It, iii, ii, 65. 

67, 308-309. Mars . . . Vulcans snare: the well- 
known story, first appearing in the Odyssey, Book viii. 

67, 317-318. And, me thinks . . . before. This speech 

certainly seems to be out of keeping with the character of Marc. 
Antonio. Possibly Chapman's conception of Marc. Antonio is 
here, as elsewhere, coloured by that of Micio, the easy-going man 
of the world, in the Adelphi. (Cf. Adelphi, i, i, 16-18, and i, ii, 
21-23.) 

68, 329. Sine periculo friget lusus : Professor E. K. 

Rand suggests that Chapman, with memories of certain lines of Ovid 
(e. g. Amoves, 2. 19; Art of Lo-ve, 2. 247, and 3. 603), may 
have fashioned his line from one of Terence (1. 732 oi Eunuchus) : 
*' Verbum, hercle, hoc verum erit sine Cerere et libero friget Venus. 

69, 341. these . . . whelps: /'. e. Valerio and Claudio. 

70, 372. to be a cuckold. With these words Dariotto prob- 
ably makes horns at Cornelio. This accounts for the latter' s outburst. 

70, 376. rayse the streets: call on the passers-by for aid. 
(Cf. Othello, I, i, i68, 183.) 

7I» 39^- your hat . . . weare it. It was a common 
practice for the Elizabethan lover to wear a " favour" of his lady, 
a glove, for example, in his hat. 

72, 413. Out of France: one of the innumerable refer- 
ences of Elizabethan writers to lues venerea as of French origin. 

72, 414. stood on my armes : prided myself upon my 
coat of arms. 

72, 420. shew good cardes for: bring good proof of, 

show genealogical charts. 

73, 430. joynt of mutton: probably "mutton" here, as 
so often in Elizabethan usage, for a loose woman. 

73> 45°- 'Writt of error : a writ brought to procure the 
reversal of a judgement on the ground of error. 

74, 464-465. came in at the window: is an illegitimate 

child. Valerio makes the charge here that Cornelio did above 
(lines 281-283). Cf. King John, i, i, 171, and The Ball, 11, i. 



130 0Ott& 

74, 469-470. So, sir . . . ridiculouse : all previous 

editions give these words to Dariotto ; but it is plain that they 
belong to Valerio. The bloody coxcomb which the latter' s tale- 
bearing has procured Dariotto is his return for the courtier's share 
in the trick played upon Valerio at the close of the preceding act. 
In the Quarto, v, ii, 97-104, a speech is similarly taken from 
Valerio and given to the preceding speaker. Unless the latter part 
of 1. 470 is lost, we must assume that this speech is interrupted 
by Rinaldo. 

74, 469. rings lowd acquittance : makes (or proclaims) 
payment in full. 

74, 471. salve your license: make good the liberty you 
took, /. e. with Gratiana. 

77, 2,3-26. O the good God . . . our owne : Pro- 
fessor Koeppel notes that we have here a characteristic elaboration 
of the simple style of Terence into the figurative language of the 
Elizabethans. Cf. Heautontimorumenos^ iii, i, 93-96. 

77, 29. •white Sonne : pure, guiltless son : ironical. The 
phrase '* white boy " was sometimes used as a term of endearment 
to a chUd (^Yorkshire Tragedy, Sc. v). 

77, 31-32. Credulity . . . Decrepity: credulity, such as 
yours, is a sure way to hasten the decrepitude, imbecility, of old age. 

77, 35. All this is . . . plot: in the same manner Chremes 
(^Heautontimorumenos, iv, viii) opens, as he thinks, the eyes of 
Menedemus. Chapman has enlarged the scene and brought out 
forcibly the self-conceit and contempt of his neighbour which char- 
acterises Gostanzo. 

78, 50. I . . . suggested: Gostanzo in the height of his 
triumph over Marc. Antonio calmly assumes the credit for Rinaldo's 
"queint devise." Cf iii, i, 78-89. 

78, 53. this fount : Gostanzo touches his head as he speaks. 

78, 62. my circumstance . . . fact : the circumstance 
that I shortly before had believed myself slighted by my son and yet 
had not been angry, serving to lessen Valerio's '* fact," /. e. fault, 
offence. 

79. Intrant Rynaldo, etc. : the following scene to the 
departure of the two fathers is Chapman's own invention, and shows 
him, perhaps, at his best in comedy. It has no analogue in the 



iliotefif 131 

plays of Terence, but is devised partly for the sake of the highly 
comic situation, partly to prepare for the solution in the last act. 

79, 82-83. bolt . . . life: with the thunderbolt of my 
anger cut off the support which you draw from my estate. The 
language is purposely exaggerated. 

80, 86-92. If teares . . . dame : an involved and some- 
what obscure passage. Valerio, in his feigned submission, appeals to 
his father by the tie of blood. His tears come from his ** inward 
eyes," /. e. they are not outward show; they are indeed *' so 
many drops of blood," and these drops issue from the " creator of 
his heart," /. e. from Gostanzo himself. Collier, who does not 
seem to have understood the passage, suggested that "creator" 
was a corruption of " crater " ; but this reading would destroy the 
meaning. 

80, 98-99. You thought . . . with her : Rinaldo's aside 
introduces a motive which has no analogue in Terence. It cannot 
be said to add to the interest of the play, as nothing more is heard 
of it ; but it serves to show the hypocritical character of Gostanzo's 
morality. 

81, 115-116. birth-right . . . messe of broth : Go- 
stanzo seems to be thinking of Esau and his mess of pottage. 

81, 121. of any: by any one. 

82, 133-134. world so . . . beauty: your age so far 
advanced that you may not look again with eyes of love on such 
a beauty (as Gratiana's). 

82, 140. it : /. e. love, understood from "affections" in the 
preceding line. 

82, 147-148. large thongs . . . leather: to cut large 
thongs out of other people's leather was an old saying [Heywood's 
Pro'verbs^ pt. 11, chap. 5], implying to make free use of another 
man's goods. Gostanzo here applies it, in an admiring aside, to the 
eloquent defence Valerio is making of Fortunio's supposed case. 

83, 150, these men: such simple souls as Marc. Antonio. 
83, 158. I can hold no longer: it is not quite evident 

whether Gratiana speaks these words in earnest or merely to play 
up to Valerio. Gostanzo evidently believes the latter, see note 
below on line 161. But Gostanzo misunderstands the whole situa- 
tion, and I incline to believe that Gratiana is so carried away by the 



132 iPotes? 



excellence of Valerio's acting that she believes he is renouncing her 
in earnest. 

83, 161. has her lyripoope : has her wits about her. The 
word "lyripoop," a scarf or hood worn by one who had taken 
a university degree, was used figuratively to denote first learning, 
then wit or common sense. Cf. Mother Bombie, i, iii, 128. 

84, 1 68-1 71. No, no . . . you both. Gostanzo's for- 
giveness is of course as pure a piece of acting as Valerio's repent- 
ance. Having shown Marc. Antonio how a disobedient son should 
be reproved, he now condescends to give a lesson in the art of 
forgiveness. 

84, 178. armd you . . . expectation : had I not warned 

you in advance. 

85, i04- beare a braine : a common Elizabethan phrase for 
" hold in mind, remember." Cf. Romeo and Juliet^ i, iii, 29. 

86, 214. the honor 'd action: the marriage. 

86, 220. In her true kinde : i. e. as your wife. 

88, 252-255, a white sheete . . . capitall letters: 

the sheet in which adulterers did public penance, and the letters 
indicative of their sin which were bound to their foreheads. 

88, 258. in minde : I retain the reading of the Quarto on the 
chance of its being correct. A friend suggests that '* in minde " = 
in my (Cornelio's) mind. Cornelio sharply contrasts mere physical 
with mental torture. I am inclined, however, to accept Collier's sug- 
gestion of **mine" = my (forehead). The mistake of a **d" 
for an ** e " would be an easy one in an Elizabethan MS. 

88, 270. stable of your honour : Ingleby, Shakespeare 
Hermeneutics, pp. 77-78, cites this passage in defence of his asser- 
tion that the phrase, "to keep one's stables," was familiar in 
Shakespeare's day and meant ** to keep personal watch over one's 
wife's, or one's mistress's chastity." Cf. Winter'' s Tale^ 11, i, 134. 

90, 311. autenticall dashes: the dashes over words to 
represent a missing *'m" or " n," without which the document 
might be invalid. 

90, 316. Butiro & Caseo : butter and cheese. Augustine 
Vincent (^Discovery of Erron, etc.^ 1622) speaks of " Scogan's 
scholar who read Butyrum et Caseum for Brutum et Cassium." I 
do not find this story in Scogan % JestSy but it was probably a well- 



iFiotecf 133 



known joke in Chapman's day. I do not understand the allusion 
to '* Butler and Cason's case " which follows. 

90, 322. in Florence : this casual phrase gives the scene of 
the play. 

91, 345. easements chamber: not "easements, cham- 
ber," as Collier reads, but in the sense of a *' chamber of ease," 
or water-closet. 

9^i 35^' pole-deedes : more commonly "deed-polls," 
deeds made by one party only, and so differing from "indentures," 
deeds between two or more parties. 

92, 360. 1500 and so forth: i.e. 15 . Mr. Fleay 

(^Chronicle of the English Drama, vol. 1, p. 58) believes this to be 
one of the signs that the play was first performed in the sixteenth 
century. 

92, 362. What els: not "What else shall I do besides 
setting to," but "of course," " or I will do nothing else." 

92, 371. at large: in large characters, requiring plenty of ink. 

92, 373-374. Ah, asse . . . lost it : addressed to the 
unfortunate Gazetta who is about to lose the happiness of having 
such a husband. 

92, 375. my nose bleed: an omen, usually of ill luck. 
Cf. The Duchess of Malfi, 11, iii, 42-44. 

93, 387. howlet . . . CUCkooe : an owl discovered by 
other birds in daytime is frequently attacked by them. (Cf. The Case 
is Altered^ v, iii.) The cuckoo certainly deserves such treatment, 
although I have not heard of its infliction. 

93, 399-400. with his glory : in his vain-glory. 

94, 410. like two partes in me : Professor Baker suggests: 
' ' if like two independent persons, I do not gull each guller, ' ' or 
" as if I were two different persons, the man who may be gulled 
and the man who can gull others easily." I suspect a corruption of 
the text here. 

95,7-10. smocke-faces . . . substance: to some 

people Fortune gives smock-faces, /. e. beauty, or some (similar) 
gifts which enable them to "live in sensual acceptations," /. e. to 
gain a favourable reception on the part of the senses (or at the 
hands of those who judge only by the senses) and to make a show 
when they have no trace of real worth. 



134 ^Ott^ 

95, 14. in themselves no piece : no flaw or broken bit 

in their wits. Query : misprint for ** one piece " = undivided, un- 
broken ? 

96, 38. beare him out : back him up, help him out. 

96, 38-39. made Meanes . . . sequester him : used 

means to induce the officers to keep him in private instead of taking 
him to a debtor's prison. "Made meanes" probably = *' sent 
people as go-betweens." Cf. TAe Gentleman Usher ^ i, ii, 159. 

97, 42. take . . . order : take proper action at once. 

97, 46. as you can wisely doo't : Rinaldo's '* humour" 
is a love of intrigue, of managing other people's affairs. Like the 
other persons of this comedy he is gulled by an appeal to his master 
passion. 

97> 53-54- beate . . . shelter: the figure is from ships 
at sea, no doubt suggested by "storme" in the preceding line, 
driven by the wind into a dangerous (*' horred " = rough, bristling 
with rocks) harbour. 

97,60. this slight a milstone: "to see through a 

millstone" was a proverbial phrase for having very keen vision, 
mental as well as physical. This "slight," or trick, however, is 
a millstone too thick for Rinaldo. 

98, 69. a red lettice : the lattice window painted red was 
formerly the common sign of an ale-house. 

98, 75- Jam SUmus ergo pares. Martial, Epigrams, II, 
xviii, 2, 4, 6. 

98. Enter Valerio, etc. : the stage, which in the pre- 
ceding scene represented a street in Florence, is now supposed to 
be a room in a tavern. Drawers enter with a table. Note that 
Chapman cleverly covers the poverty of the stage-setting by mak- 
ing Valerio say that they are changing from one room of the 
tavern to another. 

98, 2. shift chances : change the luck. It is a common 
superstition among gamblers that a change of seats means a change 
of luck. Valerio seems from 11. 86-87 to have been having bad 
luck at the dice. 

98, 5. where . . . becomes : what is become of that 
slave. Cf. The Blind Beggar, i, i (vol. i, p. 3). 

99, 8. stands in print : stands in a formal manner, or 
precisely as it should. 



jliotesf 135 

99, 16. Rialto : Chapman here transfers the well-known 
quarter of Venice to Florence. 

100, 34. unpledg'd : the expressions "pledge" and '* un- 
pledg'd " of this scene recall old customs of drinking healths which 
are, perhaps, best interpreted by the '' Bier-Comment " of the Ger- 
man students to-day. Unless under exceptional circumstances, no 
man in a convivial gathering such as this in the Halfe-Moone, drank 
a glass without proposing a toast or drinking a health to some 
member of the company. This member was the '* pledge " of the 
person drinking his health, and was bound to "pledge" him, 
/. e. to drink his health in return (cf. German, Bescheid-thun). 
This answering draught was also called the "pledge." In this 
scene Dariotto coming late to the carousal is ordered to drink a 
bumper " unpledg'd," so as to overtake the others. Dariotto pro- 
poses to drink this cup to the ladies (1. 66), whereupon Valerio 
offers to be their "pledge " (1. 67), /. e. to drink Dariotto's 
health in return and proposes at the same time Cornelio's health 
(1. 72), which is answered, " pledged," by Dariotto. Later Valerio 
proposes, as a toast, the comfort his father would take in him 
if he saw him (11. 88-90)5 Fortunio answers, "He pledge it," 
/. e. " I '11 drink to that toast." 

100, 43. pudding cane tabacco: tobacco rolled into a 
tight stick or cane which had to be shredded by the knife before 
being crammed into the pipe. A wood-cut reproduced from a Dutch 
book on tobacco (1623) in Tobacco — its History^ etc. (Fairholt, 
1859) shows a smoker with roll and knife on the table before him, 
" Leaf tobacco" needs no definition. 

100, 44. linstock : the page has answered Valerio's call for 
tobacco (1. 37) and appears with a roll of the weed in one hand 
and in the other a pipe-light made out of a leaf of a book — prob- 
ably, from the adjectives applied to it in 1. 46, a page of Marston's 
Satires. He wilfully supposes Valerio's demand (" letmee see that 
leafe") to refer to the tobacco. Whereupon, to make it plain, 
Valerio says " I meane your linstock," /. e. the pipe-light. Pro- 
perly "linstock " is a stick with a forked head to hold a lighted 
match. 

101, 48-51. my boy . . . weeke after: apparently a cur- 
rent joke in the early seventeenth century. Jonson told it to Drum- 



136 il^otesf 

mond, who recorded it in a MS. volume of miscellanies as follows: 
" One who had fired a pipe of tobacco with a ballet [ballad] sweare 
he hearde the singing of it in his head thereafter the space of two 
dayes." {^Archaeologka Scotica, iv, 78.) 

1 01, 56. without hat or knee: without taking off his hat 
or kneeling in honour of the ladies. Collier quotes from R. Junius 
i^Drunkard'' s Character, 1638): '* Wine worshippers will be at it 
on their knees, especially if they drink a great man's health." 

1 01, 63. runne all a head : all run headlong without order 
or restraint. 

102, 65. elephant . . . joynts: that the elephant had no 
joints and could not kneel was, according to Sir Thomas Browne, 
"an old and grey-headed error even in the days of Aristotle." 
{Vulgar Errors, III, i.) 

102, 73. Dar. Health to Gazetta: this speech, I think, 

certainly belongs to Dariotto, rather than, as in the (Quarto, to Claudio. 
Dariotto has been ordered to drink upon his knees, but up to this 
point has been prevented by the interruptions. It cannot be Claudio 
who drinks here, for the drawer is ordered to fill for his draught 
below, 1. 76. Moreover, the sentiment which the speaker utters is 
far more appropriate in Dariotto's mouth than in Claudio's. 

102, 77. sett mee : set a stake, make a bet, with me on 
the next cast of the dice. 

102, 77. let the : it seems plain that we have to do here 
with a simple corruption. The "mee" after "sett" has been 
repeated after *' let " by the transcriber or printer, and the comma 
at the close of the line in the Quarto, introduced to set off what 
was now thought of as an independent phrase. But "come" in 
the next line must have, as the context shows, a subject in the third 
person, and this subject is " the rest." 

102, 78. done . . . right : to do a man right, or reason, 
was a usual expression in pledging, or returning a health. Cf. 2 King 
Henry IV, v, iii, 76. 

I03» ^5- lets sett him round : let all of us (round the 
table) bet against his throw. Valerio accepts and cries "at all," 
meaning that he casts against all the others. 

103, 94. I barr : as Gostanzo speaks he comes forward from 
the back-stage, where he has been standing, to the table where the 



il^ote0 137 

revellers are sitting. We must suppose Fortunio and Bellanora to 
fly to the side of the stage, where they remain until Fortunio comes 
forward to thank Gostanzo (1. 146). Valerio, however, is by this 
time in a state where the appearance of his father does not cause him 
the least concern. On the contrary, he invites the old man to join 
them. 

104, 98. thriftie sentences : prudent maxims. 

104, loo. a pudding has two : an old proverb (see Bohn's 
Handbook of Pro-verbs, p. 89) runs : *' Everything has an end and 
a pudding lias two." Mr. P. A. Daniel suggests emending '• time " 
(1. 99) to *' term " in order to bring the text nearer to the proverb. 

104, 100-103. satisfaction . . . insinuate: deliberate 

nonsense in ridicule of Gostanzo's ** sentences." 

104, 103. a tryall: Valerio encourages Gostanzo, who is 
inarticulate with rage, to speak out. The drunken insolence of 
Valerio in this scene may have been suggested by that of Syrus to 
Demea in the Adelphi, v, i. Cf. the phrases "thunder forth," 
''sentences," <* wisely," with " Ohe jam tu verba fundis hie 
sapientia?" {Adelphi, v, i, 7.) 

104, 112. at cittie: Collier suggests <' o' th' city" j but 
*' come at " was used for " come to." See New English Dic- 
tionary^ sub * at ' 12 a. 

104,114. comes upon : is attacking, '< hitting at." 

105, 122. for cullour sake : for the sake of the pretence. 

ioS> *^5- Gratianas bed-chamber: the revelation by 

which Gostanzo's eyes are finally opened is borrowed almost verb- 
ally from the Heautonttmorumenos (v, i, 29-41). Cf. "Is there 
any ... his wife " (11. 133-134) with Heautontimorumenos^ v, i, 
38-40 : 

an dubium id tibi est ? 
quemquamne animo tarn comi esse, aut leni putas, 
qui se vidente amicam patiatur suam ? 

Cf. also 11. 135-138, " Why not . . . eyes" and " deare deceit 
. . . deceiver," with Heautontimorumenos, v, i, 41, and v, i, 
45-46. Also, 1. 144, " give my daughter all," with Heautontimo- 
rumenos^ v, i, 69. 

106, 142. peece of WOrke : a mighty matter. Ironically, 
since Gostanzo does not propose to trouble himself about a little 
thing like breaking his oath. 



138 jl^oteflf 

108, 196. come cut and long-tayle: a proverbial saying 
equivalent to ** against all comers," " bar none." Nares (Glossary, 
vol. I, p. 220) gives "cut" = *' curtail cur. " Cf. Merry Wives 
of Windsor, in, iv, 47. 

109, 202-203. looke to her water : diagnose her case. 
109, 214-216. Young men . . . fooles: quoted by Camden 

{Remains, 1605) as a well-known saying of a certain Dr. Medcalfe. 
109, 223. bridle . . . Stomack : restrain her high spirit. 

109, 224. dra'W on the cullour: obtain a pretext. 

no, 239-240. within my COmpasse : into my stratagem, 
or device. 

110, 241. in graine : an abbreviated form of "dyed in 
grain," = dyed scarlet, a " fast " colour. Hence " in grain " = 
** genuine through and through," often with a contemptuous sense. 
Cf the modern slang phrase *' dyed in the wool." 

110, 249-250. potable humour: flowing vein, probably 
also with an allusion to Valerio's potations. 

111, 280. worthier crest: cf. the song in As Tou Like 
It, IV, ii. 

113, 324. Saturnian bull : the bull which was really the 
son of Saturn, /. e. Jupiter. 

113, 328. hold by the home: a play on "home," per- 
haps also on "hold by" in the two senses of "cling to," as 
Europa did, and " retain, keep," as Europe does. 

wx, 333. I have read: this fable of ^Esop's occurs in 
More's Life of Richard III, and also in Camden's Remains. Chap- 
man may have seen it in either of these. 

114, 354-355. fine . . . offices: it was not an uncommon 
practice in England at one time for rich citizens to evade election 
to unwelcome offices by paying down a certain sum to the public 
coffers. Cf. The Alchemist, i, 414. 

116, II. welcome: a substitute for an obvious rhyme. Of 
the six copies of the Quarto that I have seen, that in the Advocates' 
Library at Edinburgh, that in the Bodleian, and the two in the British 
Museum have a parenthesis ( ) in this line before nvelcome. So, I 
hear, has the B. P. L. copy. The copies in the Edinburgh Uni- 
versity Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum lack this mark. 



THE DEDICATION^ OF ALL FOOLS 

TO MY LONG LOV' D AND HONOURABLE FRIEND SIR 
THOMAS WALSINGHAM KNIGHT 2 

Should I expose to every common eye, 

The least allow' d birth of my shaken braine j 
And not entitle it perticulerly 

To your acceptance, I were wurse then vaine. 
And though I am most loth to passe your sight 

with any such light marke of vanitie. 
Being markt with Age for Aimes of greater weight, 

and drownd in darke Death-ushering melancholy. 
Yet least by others stealth it be imprest, 

without my pasport, patcht with others wit. 
Of two enforst ills I elect the least j 

and so desire your love will censure it ; 

1 This dedication is here printed from the slip bound up in Dyce's copy 
of the Quarto. It agrees exactly with the reprint in the Pearson edition of 
Chapman, vol. i, p. iii, except that the latter has a misprint •• beway ' for 
' bewray ' in the last line. 

2 Sir Thomas Walsingham, a kinsman of Elizabeth's great minister,* 
was a courtier and patron of literature in the reigns of Elizabeth and 
James I. He seems to have entertained Marlowe; and the publisher of 
Marlowe's Hero and Leander dedicated the first edition of this poem to 
him, as Chapman did his continuation of Marlowe's work to Lady Wal- 
singham. In 1608 Chapman dedicated to him and to his son the two 
Biron plays in words which at least seem to imply that the poet had 
never before dedicated any work to him — the phrase is : "I know you 
ever stood little affected to these unprofitable rites of Dedication (which 
disposition in you hath made me hetherto dispense with your right in my 
other impressions)." Mr. Sidney Lee suggests that the words may meaa' 
that other copies of the 1608 edition of Bjrron lacked this dedication. It ) 
appears, however, so far as I know, in all extant copies of these plays, and 
the obvious meaning of the words is that noted above. 



140 appenHir 

Though my old fortune keep me still obscure, 
The light shall still bewray my ould love sure. 

This dedication, a sonnet in the Shakespearian form, 
does not appear in any old copy that I have been able to 
see, viz., those in the Edinburgh University Library, 
Advocates' Library, British Museum, Bodleian, Victoria 
and Albert Museum, and the Boston Public Library. 
Nor is it found in the Duke of Devonshire's copy at 
Chatsworth, in the two copies belonging to Mr. T. J. 
Wise, nor in that at Britwell Court. 

The first reprint of All Fools (Dodsley's Old Plays, 
1780) did not contain this dedication. The second re- 
print {Select Collection of Old Plays, ed. by J. P. Collier, 
1825) contains it, with the following note by the editor : 

"This dedication by Chapman to his patron is now for 
the first time inserted, the copies of * All Fools' seen and 
used by Mr. Reed [/'. e. the editor of the 1780 Dodsley] 
being without it. Whether it was inserted in a few im- 
pressions in 1605 and afterwards cancelled does not ap- 
pear, though it seems probable that it was so, because in 
the dedication of his * Byron's Conspiracy and Tragedy,' 
1608, to the same distinguished individual. Chapman 
apologises for previous neglect and seeming ingratitude to 
his patron « in dispensing with his right in his other im- 
pressions.' It was found in a copy in the possession of 
Mr. Rodd,' of Great Newport Street." 

This copy seems afterwards to have come into Col- 
lier's own possession, for a MS. note in Dyce's hand in 
the quarto now in the Victoria and Albert Museum 
says : 

**The Dedication to Walsingham is found only in 
a single copy of this play which belongs to Mr. Collier. 

I A well-known bookseller of that time, mentioned by Collier, in His- 
tory of Dramatic Poetry^ vol. J, p. 79 n. 



appentiir 141 

He reprinted twelve copies of that Dedication, and one 
of them is inserted here." 

Since we have no other testimony to the authenticity 
of the dedication than Collier's statement, the suspicion 
at once arises that it may be only one of the " mystifica- 
tions " of that ingenious scholar. And this suspicion is 
strengthened by the inconsistency of Collier's own state- 
ments in re the dedication in his two editions of "The 
History of Dramatic Poetry. In 1831 he says (iii, 393) 
that Chapman' s dedication of his y^// Foo//, 1605, *< seems 
to have been cancelled in many copies." In 1879 he 
speaks of it (iii, 74) as ** a sonnet prefixed to only a few 
copies"; but later on (iii, 196) he says it *< seems to 
have been cancelled in all extant copies." This is an 
extraordinary remark if he had himself possessed a 1605 
quarto containing the dedication. 

It has been suggested to me by Mr. T. J. Wise that 
the sonnet may be a genuine poem by Chapman, the 
dedication of some other work, wrongly bound up in a 
copy of All Foolsy with which it had originally no con- 
nexion (there is no mention of the play by name in the 
sonnet). No such poem is known to me, but it could be 
determined, I suppose, by an investigation of the Collier 
quarto whether the sonnet found there were printed by 
an Elizabethan printer. 

Mr. W. C. Hazlitt informs me that Collier's copy 
did contain the dedication, and that it was sold with the 
library of Mr. Ouvry at Sotheby's. In Sotheby's cata- 
logue of the sale of the library of Frederic Ouvry, March 
30, 1882, Lot 254 is «< G. Chapman's Al Fooles, a 
comedy : with the Dedicatory Sonnet to Sir T. Walsing- 
ham, T. Thorpe Quarto, 1605." This copy was sold 
for i/. I2S. to Robson, the booksellers, z. e. Messrs. Rob- 
son & Co. , 2 3 Coventry Street. Messrs. Robson are unable 



142 appenDir 

at present to inform me who purchased the copy from 
them, and all my efforts to discover its present location 
have been in vain. 

The price seems very low for a copy of All Fools con- 
taining what was supposed to be the only original and 
contemporary example of the dedication. And this leads 
me to suspect that the dedication here noted may be 
nothing more than one of the twelve reprints which Col- 
lier had made. 

In itself the dedication, which has been generally re- 
ceived since Collier printed it as a genuine poem by 
Chapman,' is not suspicious. Its phrasing and turn of 
thought seem to me rather like what Chapman might 
have written, and I do not wish to be considered as per- 
emptorily stigmatising it as a forgery. But Collier was 
at least as skilful as he was conscienceless in his extraor- 
dinary inventions, and the evidence for the authenticity 
of the dedication rests at present wholly upon Collier's 
word. Such being the case, I have considered it the pru- 
dent course to remove the dedication from its usual place 
at the beginning of the play and to print it in an ap- 
pendix with a statement of the reasons which have led me 
to doubt its authenticity. If Collier's copy oi All Fools 
should ever come to light the question would, I suppose, 
be settled positively. 

I Fleay, Chronicle of the English Drama, vol. i, p. 59, notes that its 
genuineness lias been suspected, but he does not say by whom, and seems 
himself inclined to accept it. 



TEXT 

The Gentleman Usher was entered under the title of Vincentio 
and Margaret for Valentine Syms in the Stationers^ Register on 
November 26, 1605. It was printed in quarto form in 1606 by 
V. S. (Valentine Syms) for Thomas Thorppe, who had published 
All Fooles in 1605, and was later to publish The Conspiracy and 
Tragedy of Byron, 1608. No reprint appeared till 1873, when it 
was included in The Comedies and Tragedies of George Chapman, 
published by John Pearson. The Quarto text was reproduced with 
the original spelling and punctuation, but with a number of errors, 
a few grave. A later edition with modernised spelling and punctu- 
ation, and a few emendations, appeared in 1 8 74 in The Works of 
George Chapman — Plays, edited by R. H. Shepherd and published 
by Chatto and Windus. 

For the present edition the text has been transcribed from a copy 
of the Quarto in the Malone Collection at the Bodleian, and has 
been collated with the two copies at the British Museum and with 
that in the Dyce Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. 
The differences between these copies amount at most to an occa- 
sional variation in punctuation or the replacing of a dropped letter. 
Clearly they belong to one edition. The Quarto was evidently 
printed from an acting copy and there is no reason to think it was 
revised by the author. The original spelling has been retained ; 
but the capitalisation has been modernised, and the use of italics 
for proper names abandoned. The punctuation has been revised 
throughout, but wherever the old punctuation might indicate a 
different construction attention has been called to it in a footnote. 
A few evident misprints, such as facel : et for face : let, i, i, 64, 
and Snite for Suite, i, ii, 31, etc., have been silently corrected. The 
few conjectural emendations are included in brackets, [ ], and 
distinguished by "Emend, ed," in the footnotes. Shepherd's 
emendations when recorded are distinguished by S. 

In the Quarto the play is in five acts of one scene each. Further 
scene-divisions have been made, in brackets, wherever there is an 
evident change of place. Additions to stage-directions have also 
been bracketed. The whole name of each speaker, in modern 
form, and normalised, is prefixed to his first speech in each scene. 



SOURCES 

The immediate source of the play is not known. The love- 
intrigue is so clearly conceived and so steadily carried through as to 
suggest that Chapman, whose forte was by no means invention, 
borrowed it entire from some French or Italian novel. A few scenes 
to which attention is called in the Notes are suggested by, or perhaps 
borrowed from, the earlier play of Sir Gyles Goose-cappe. As to 
the connection between the characters of Bassiolo and Malvolio see 
Introduction, pp. xliii, xliv. 

In a Nachtrag to his Siuellen-Studien in den Dramen Chapman Sy 
etc., page 221, Professor Koeppel has pointed out certain similar- 
ities between The Gentleman Usher, on the one hand, and the 
anonymous plays, The fVisdom of Dr. Dodypoll, and The History 
of the Trial of Chi-valry, on the other. The first, printed in 
1600 and reprinted by Mr. Bullen {Old Plays, vol. in, 1884), 
tells among other things the story of the unsuccessful passion of a 
Duke Alphonso for the Lady Hyanthe, daughter of Earl Cassimere, 
who loves and is beloved by the Duke's son, Alberdure. Apart 
from the name of the father, Alphonsus, the only thing in com- 
mon to the plays is the theme of the father's love for his son's 
mistress, and this may go back in each case to a common source, 
the story of Zenothemes and Menecrates in Lucian's Toxaris. 

The similarity between two episodes in The Gentleman Usher 
and The Trial by Chi-valry is more apparent. In the latter play, 
entered S. R., December 4, 1604, but probably written much 
earlier, the metre and technic point to the sixteenth century. A 
rejected suitor smears a lady's face with poison which makes her 
"spotted, disfigured, a loathsome leper." The prince to whom 
she is betrothed, however, insists upon carrying out his contract of 
marriage, although the lady declares that she is unworthy. The 
situation is closely akin to that in the last scene of The Gentle- 
man Usher, and the similarity is heightened by the fact that in each 
case the lady is cured by a wonder-working physician, in The Gen- 
tleman Usher by Benivemus, in The Trial by a hermit, skilled in 
"physic." It seems quite possible that Chapman lifted the whole 
episode of the poison from this earlier play. 



TM'. 




GE NTLEM AN 

V S H E %^ 

By 
George Chapman. 



WSBJ^BTm^m- ttm^mm ^n»M*>»c oir^tg^wr ^»ai»iia ^wtafoi 




AT L0NDO7L 

PrintedbyV.S. forThomasThorppe. 
1 C o 6* 



[DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

Duke Alphonso. 
, Strozza, a Lord. 
PoGio, the foolish nepheiv o/" Strozza. 
Prince Vincentio, son o/" Alphonso. 
Medice, the favorite o/" Alphonso. 
Sarpego, a Pedant. 
Earl Lasso, an old Lord. 
Bassiolo, gentleman usher to Lasso. 
Fungus, a ser-vant o/" Lasso. 
Benivemus, a Doctor. 
Julio, a Courtier. 
A Ser-vant of Medice. 

CvNANCHE, ivife of Strozza. 
CoRTEZA, sister o/" Lasso. 
Margaret, daughter o/" Lasso. 
Ancilla. 

Attendants, Servants, Huntsmen, Guard, Two Pages, Maids. 

Figures in the MAScyjES 

Enchanter, Spirits, Sylvanus, a Nymph. 
Broom-man, Rush-man, Broom-maid, Rush-maid, a man-bug, a 
•woman-bug. 

Scene — Italy.] 
Dramatis Persona. Supplied by Editor, 



Cl^e (Gentleman M^tt 



Actus Primus. Sc^na Prima. 

[^Before the House of Strozza.'^ 
Enter Strozzay Cynanchey and Pogio. 

Strozza. Haste, nephew ; what, a sluggard ? 
Fie for shame ! 
Shal he that was our morning cock turn owle. 
And locke out day light from his drowsie eies ? 

Pogio. Pray pardon mee for once, lord unkle, 
for He bee sworne I had such a dreame this 5 
morning : me thought one came with a com- 
mission to take a sorrell curtoll, that was 
stolne from him, wheresoever hee could find him. 
And because I feared he would lay claime to my 
sorrell curtoll in my stable, I ran to the smith 10 
to have him set on his mane againe and his taile 
presently, that the Commission-man might not 
thinke him a curtoll. And when the smith 
would not doe it, I fell a beating of him, so that 
I could not wake for my life til I was revenged 15 
on him. 



148 ^\)t (3tntltmm tm^ljer [acti. 

Cynanche. This is your old valure, nephew, 
that will fight sleeping as well as waking. 

Pog. Slud, aunt, what if my dreame had beene 
true (as it might have beene for any thing I 20 
knew) ? There 's never a smith in Italie shall 
make an asse of me in my sleepe if I can chuse. 
Stro. Well said, my furious nephew : but I 
see 
You quite forget that we must rowse to day 
The sharp-tuskt bore, and blaze our huntsman- 
ship »5 
Before the Duke. 

Pog, Forget, lord unkle ? I hope not ; you 

thinke belike my wittes are as brittle as a beetle, 

or as skittish as your Barbarie mare : one cannot 

crie " wehie," but straight shee cries " tihi.'* 30 

Stro. Well ghest, coosen Hysteron Proteron ! 

Pog. But which way will the Dukes Grace 

hunt to day ? 
Stro. Toward Count Lassos house his Grace 
will hunt, 
Where he will visit his late honourd mistresse. 
Pog. Who, Ladie Margaret, that deare yong 

dame? 35 

Will his antiquitie never leave his iniquitie ? 
Cyn. Why, how now, nephew? turnd Par- 
nassus lately ? 
Pog. " Nassus ? " I know not : but I would I 



Scene l] w^t ^mtlettian Wi&))tt 149 

had all the Dukes living for her sake, Ide make 
him a poore duke, ifaith, 4° 

Stro. No doubt of that, if thou hadst all his 
living. 

Pog. I would not stand dreaming of the mat- 
ter as I do now. 

Cyn. Why how doe you dreame, nephew ? 

Pog. Mary, all last night me thought I was 45 
tying her shoostring. 

Stro. What, all night tying her shoostring ? 

Pog. I, that I was, and yet I tied it not 
neither ; for as I was tying it, the string broke, 
me thought, and then, me thought, having but 50 
one poynt at my hose, me thought, I gave her 
that to tie her shoo withall. 

Cyn. A poynt of much kindnesse, I assure 
you. 

Pog. Wherupon, in the verie nicke, me 55 
thought, the Count came rushing in, and I 
ranne rushing out, with my heeles about my 
hose for haste. 

Stro. So ; will you leave your dreaming, and 
dispatch ? 

Pog. Mum, not a worde more; He goe before, 60 
and overtake you presently. Exit l^Pogio~^ . 

Cyn. My lord, I fancie not these hunting 
sports 
When the bold game you follow turnes againe, 



150 ®t)e Gentleman Mai^tt [act i. 

And stares you in the face : let me behold 

A cast of faulcons on their merry wings, 65 

Daring the stooped prey that shifting flies : 

Or let me view the fearefull hare or hinde 

Tosst like a musicke point with harmonie 

Of well mouthed hounds. This is a sport for 

princes, 
The other rude ; boares yeeld fit game for 

boores. 70 

Stro. Thy timorous spirit blinds thy judge- 
ment, wife ; 
Those are most royall sports that most approve 
The huntsmans prowesse and his hardie minde. 
Cyn. My lord, I know too well your vertu- 
ous spirit ; 
Take heede, for Gods love, if you rowse the 

bore, 75 

You come not neere him, but discharge aloofe 
Your wounding pistoll or well aymed dart. 
Stro. I, mary, wife, this counsaile rightly 
flowes 
Out of thy bosome ; pray thee take lesse care ; 
Let ladies at their tables judge of bores, 80 

Lords in the field : and so farewell, sweete love; 
Faile not to meete me at Earle Lassos house. 

70 rude ; boares. Qq, rude Boares. Punctuation suggested to 
the editor by Mr. P. A. Daniel. 

74 'vertuous. Mr. Daniel suggests, venturous. 



Scene I] tCj)e Gentleman Ma^tt 1 5 ^ 

Cyn. Pray pardon me for that : you know I love 
not 
These solemne meetings. 

Stro. You must needes, for once, 

Constraine your disposition ; and indeede 85 

I would acquaint you more with Ladie Margaret, 
For speciall reason. 

Cyn. Very good, my lord. 

Then I must needes go fit me for that presence. 
Stro. I pray thee doe ; farewell. 

Exif Cyn^anche], 
Here comes my friend. 
Enter Vincentio. 
Good day, my lord ; why does your Grace confront 90 
So cleare a morning with so clowdie lookes ? 
Vincentio. Ask'st thou my griefes, that knowst 
my desprate love 
Curbd by my fathers sterne rivalitie ? 
Must I not mourne that know not whether yet 
I shall enjoy a stepdame or a wife ? 95 

Stro. A wife. Prince, never doubt it ; your 
deserts 
And youthfuU graces have engaged so farre 
The beauteous Margaret that she is your owne. 

Vin. O but the eie of watchfull jealousie 
Robs my desires of meanes t' injoy her favour. 100 
Stro. Despaire not : there are meanes enow 
for you J 



152 XB^t €^mt\tmm Wi&\)tt [acti. 

Suborne some servant of some good respect 
Thats neere your choice, who, though she needs 

no wooing, 
May yet imagine you are to begin 
Your strange yong love sute, and so speake for 

you, 105 

Beare your kind letters, and get safe accesse. 
All which when he shall do, you neede not feare 
His trustie secrecie, because he dares not 
Reveale escapes whereof himselfe is author; 
Whom you may best attempt, she must reveale ; "o 
For if she loves you, she already knowes. 
And in an instant can resolve you that. 

f^in. And so she will, I doubt not : would to 
heaven 
I had fit time, even now, to know her minde : 
This counsaile feedes my heart with much sweet 

hope. 115 

Stro. Pursue it then; t'will not be hard 
t'effect : 
The duke haz none for him but Medice, 
That fustian lord, who in his buckram face 
Bewraies, in my conceit, a map of basenesse. 

Fin. I, theres a parcell of unconstrued stufFe, 120 
That unknowne minion raisde to honours height 
Without the helpe of vertue or of art. 
Or (to say true) [of any] honest part : 

123 of any honesty emend. S. Qq, nay of honest. 



Scene l] tB\)t ^mtlettian Wi^\)tt 153 

how he shames my father ! he goes like 

A princes foote-man, in old fashioned silkes, 125 
And most times in his hose and dublet onelyj 
So miserable, that his owne few men 
Doe beg by vertue of his liverie; 
For he gives none, for any service done him. 
Or any honour, any least reward. 130 

Stro. Tis pittie such should live about a 
prince: 

1 would have such a noble counterfet nailde 
Upon the pillory, and, after, whipt 

For his adultery with nobilitie. 

Fin. Faith, I would faine disgrace him by all 
meanes, i35 

As enemy to his base-bred ignorance. 
That, being a great lord, cannot write nor reade. 
Sfro. For that, wee'le follow the blinde side 
of him. 
And make it sometimes subject of our mirth. 
E;iter Pogio paste [~haste~\ . 
Fin, See, what newes with your nephew 

Pogio ? 140 

Stro. None good, I warrant you. 
Pog. Where should I finde my lord unckle ? 
Stro. Whats the huge haste with you ? 
Pog. O ho, you will hunt to day ! 
Stro. I hope I will. HS 

124 Ae shames^ emend, S, Qq, she shames. 



154 ^¥ Gentleman ta^lier [act i. 

Pog. But you may hap to hop without your 
hope : for the truth is Kilbucke is runne mad. 

Stro. Whats this ? 

Pog. Nay, t'is true, sir : and Kilbucke, being 
runne mad, bit Ringwood so by the left but- 150 
tocke, you might have turnd your nose in it. 

Fin. Out, asse ! 

Pog. By heaven, you might, my lord : d'ee 
thinke I lie ? 

Fin. Zwoundes, might I? Lets blanket him, 155 
my lord ; a blanket heere ! 

Pog. Nay, good my lord Vincentio, by this 
rush I tell you for good will : and Venus, your 
brache there, runnes so prowd that your hunts- 
man cannot take her downe for his life. 160 

Stro. Take her up, foole, thou wouldst say. 

Pog. Why, sir, he would soone take her down, 
and he could take her up, I warrant her. 

Fin. Well said, hammer, hammer ! 

Pog. Nay, good now, lets alone. \_To Strozza.'\ 165 
And theres your horse. Gray Strozza, too, haz 
the staggers, and haz strooke Bay Bettrice, your 
Barbary mare, so that shee goes halting a this 
fashion, most filthily. 

Stro. What poison blisters thy unhappy tongue, 1 70 
Evermore braying forth unhappy newes ? 
Our hunting sport is at the best, my lord ; 
How shall I satisfie the Duke your father, 



Scene I] tlTtje Gentleman Wiii^tt 155 

Defrauding him of his expected sport ? 
See, see, he comes. 175 

Enter AlphonsOy Medice, Sarpego, with attendants. 

Alphonso. Is this the copie of the speech you 
wrote, Signieur Sarpego ? 

Sarpego. It is a blaze of wit poeticall ; 
Reade it, brave Duke, with eyes pathetical. 

Alp. We will peruse it strait : well met, Vin- 
centio, 180 

And good Lord Strozza ; we commend you both 
For your attendance ; but you must conceive 
Tis no true hunting we intend to day. 
But an inducement to a certaine shew, 
Wherewith we will present our beauteous love, 185 
And therein we bespeake your company. 

Vin. We both are ready to attend your High- 
nesse. 

Alp. See then, heere is a poeme that requires 
Your worthy censures, ofFerd, if it like. 
To furnish our intended amorous shew ; 190 

Reade it, Vincentio. 

Vin. Pardon me, my Lord, 

Lord Medices reading will expresse it better. 

Medice. My patience can digest your scofFes, 
my lord. 
I care not to proclaime it to the world : 
I can nor write nor reade ; and what of that ? 195 
I can both see and heare as well as you. 

177 Signieur Sarpego. Qq, separate line. 



1 5 6 tlTlje Gentleman metier [act i. 

Jlp. Still are your wits at warre. [To Vin- 

centio.'^ Heere, read this poeme. 
Vin. \reads~\ . " The red fac'd sunne hath firkt 
the flundering shades, 
And cast bright ammell on Auroraes brow." 
y///>. High words and strange ! Reade on, Vin- 

centio. 200 

Fin. [reads'] . " The busky groves that gag- 
tooth'd boares do shrowd 
With cringle crangle homes do ring alowd." 

Pog. My lord, my lord, I have a speech heere 
worth ten of this, and yet He mend it too. 
Jlp. How likes Vincentio ? 

Fin. It is strangely good, 205 

No inkehorne ever did bring forth the like. 
Could these brave prancing words with actions 

spurre 
Be ridden throughly and managed right, 
T' would fright the audience, and perhaps delight. 
Sar. Doubt you of action, sir ? 
Fin. I, for such stufFe. 210 

Sar. Then know, my lord, I can both act and 
teach 
To any words ; when I in Padua schoolde it, 
I plaid in one of Plautus comedies. 
Namely, Curculio^ where his part I acted. 
Projecting from the poore summe of foure lines 21 5 
Forty faire actions. 

Alp. Lets see that, I pray. 



Scene L] ^i^t (^tXltUmm Wi^^tt 1 5 7 

Sar. Your Highnesse shall commaund; 
But pardon me, if in my actions heate 
Entering in post post haste, I chaunce to take up 
Some of your honord heels. 

Pog, Y'ad best leave out 220 

That action for a thing that I know, sir. 

Sar. Then shal you see what I can do without 

it. \_Sarpego puts on his parasite s dress.'\ 

Alp. See, see, he hath his furniture and all. 

Sar. You must imagine, lords, I bring good 

newes, 

Whereof being princely prowd I scowre the 

streete ^*5 

And over-tumble every man I meete. 

Exit Sarp [ego] . 
Pog. Beshrew my heart if he take up my heeles ! 

[Re-] enter Sarp [ego as Curcu/io] . 
Sar. [running wildly about the stage]. 
Date viam mihi^ noti atq [ue] ignoti., dum ego hie 

officium meum 
Facio : fugite omnes^ abite et de via secedite., 
Ne quern in cursu capite aut cubito aut pectore 

offendam aut genu. ^3° 

220-221 T"" ad . . . know, sir. Qq, 2 11. of prose. 

228-230 Date . . . genu. Corrected by Teubner Plautus. 

Qq read : Date •viam mihi Noti, atq, Ignoti. 

Dum ego, hie, officium meum facio. 

Fugite omnes atq^ abite & de 'via secedite, ne quem 

in cursu ; aut capite, aut cubito, aut pectore offendam, aut genu. 



1 5 8 tKije ^mtlnnan WifS^tt [act l 

JIp. Thankes, good Seigneur Sarpego. 
How like you, lords, this stirring action ? 

Stro. In a cold morning it were good, my 
lord, 
But something harshe upon repletion. 

Sar. Sir, I have ventred, being enjoynde, to 
eate ^35 

Three schollers commons, and yet drewe it 
neate. 
Pog. Come, sir, you meddle in too many 
matters ; let us, I pray, tend on our owne shew 
at my lord Lassos. 

Sar. Doing obeisance then to every lord, 240 
I now consorte you, sir, even toto corde. 

Exit Sarp\ego\ ^ Pog[io~\. 
Med. My lord, away with these scholastique 
wits. 
Lay the invention of your speech on me. 
And the performance too ; He play my parte 
That you shall say. Nature yeelds more then Art. 245 

Jlp. Bee't so resolv'd; unartificiall truth 
An unfaind passion can descipher best. 

Vin. But t*wil be hard, my lord, for one un- 

learnd. 
Med. " Unlearnd ? " I cry you mercie, sir ; 

" unlearnd ? " 
Vin. I meane untaught, my lord, to make a 
speech 250 



Scene I] ^^t (BtXltltmnn Wi&^tt 159 

As a pretended actor, without close 
More gratious then your doublet and your hose. 
J/p. What, thinke you, sonne, we meane 
t' expresse a speech 
Of speciall weight without a like attire ? 

Fin. Excuse me then, my lord ; so stands it 

well. \_Alphonso puts rich robes on Medice.'^ 255 
Stro. \_aside~^. Haz brought them rarely in to 

pageant him. 
Med. What, thinke you, lord, we thinke not 
of attire ? 
Can we not make us ready at this age ? 

Stro. [/<? Alphonso^ . Alas, my lord, your wit 

must pardon his. 
Vin. I hope it will, his wit is pittyfull. 260 

Stro. [to Medici^ . I pray stand by, my Lord ; 

y' are troublesome. 
[_Med.'\ To none but you ; am I to you, my 

lord ? 
\_Fin.~\ Not unto mee. 
[Med.~\ Why, then, you wrong me, 

Strozza. 
[Fin.'] Nay, fall not out, my lords. 
Stro. May I not know 

What your speech is, my Liege ? 265 

251 close; so Qq. S, clothes. 

262-264 ^0 "°"^ • ' ' lords. In Qq Medice's speeches are given 
to Vincentio, and vice -versa. The present assignment renders the 
passage intelligible. See Notes^ p. 283, 



i6o tB^t Gentleman ttt0tjer [act i. 

JIp. None but my selfe and the Lord Medice. 
Afe^. No, pray, my lord. 
Let none partake with us. 

JIp. No, be assurM, 

But for another cause ; a word. Lord Strozza ; 
I tell you true I feare Lord Medice »7o 

Will scarce discharge the speach effectually : 
As we goe, therefore. He explaine to you 
My whole intent, that you may second him 
If neede and his debilitie require. 

Stro. Thanks for this grace, my Liege. 

Fincentio overhear es \them\ . 
Med, My lord, your sonnel^ys 

Alp. Why, how now, sonne ? Forbeare. Yet 
tis no matter. 
Wee talke of other businesse, Medice ; 
And come, we will prepare us to our shew. 

Exeunt \_Alphonso, Medice ^ and attendants^ . 
Stro. [and^ Fin. Which as we can weele cast 
to overthrow. 

[Exeunt Strozza and Fincentio.'] 



Scene IL] Xl^^t ^tXltltmm Wi&}^tt 1 6 1 

[SC^NA SeCUNDA. 

j^ Room in the House of Lord Lasso.'\ 

Enter Lasso, Bassioloy SarpegOy two Pages. Bassiolo 
bare before \the rest'j . 

Bassiolo. Stand by there, make place. 

Lasso. Sale now, Bassiolo, you on whom relies 
The generall disposition of my house 
In this our preparation for the Duke, 
Are all our officers at large instructed 5 

For fit discharge of their peculiar places ? 

Bas. At large, my lord, instructed. 

Las. Are all our chambers hung ? Thinke you 
our house 
Amplie capacious to lodge all the traine ? 

Bas. Amply capacious, I am passing glad. lo 
And now then to our mirth and musicall shew, 
Which after supper we intend t* indure. 
Welcomes cheefe dainties ; for choice cates at 

home 
Ever attend on princes, mirth abroad. 
Are all parts perfect ? 

Sarpego. One I know there is. 15 

Las. And that is yours. 

Sar. Well guest, In earnest, lord ; 

Qq read : Enter Lasso, Corteza, Margaret, Bassiolo, etc. ; but 
the proper entry for the ladies occurs below, after 1. 37. 

12 t' indure; so Qq. Dr. Bradley suggests t^ induce. 15-16 
\One . . . yours. In gq one line. 



1 62 tK\)t ^mtlnnan tllt^l^er [act i. 

I neede not erubescere to take 

So much upon me ; that my backe will beare. 

Bas. Nay, he will be perfection it selfe 
For wording well and dexterous action too. 20 

Las. And will these waggish pages hit their 
songs ? 

\_Both'] Pag \_es'] . Re mi fa sol la ! 

Las. O they are practising ; good boyes, well 
done ; 
But where is Pogio ? There y' are overshot, 
To lay a capitall part upon his braine, ^5 

Whose absence tells me plainely hee'le neglect 
him. 

Bas. O no, my lord, he dreames of nothing 
else, 
And gives it out in wagers hee'le excell ; 
And see, (I told your Lo[rdship],) he is come. 
Enter Pogio. 

Pogio. How now, my lord, have you borrowed 30 
a suite for me ? Seigneur Bassiolo, can all say, 
are all things ready ? The Duke is hard by, and 
little thinks that He be an actor, ifaith ; I keepe 
all close, my lord. 

Las. O, tis well done ; call all the ladies in. 35 
Sister and daughter, come, for Gods sake, come. 
Prepare your courtliest carriage for the Duke. 

22 Both Pages. Qq, 2 Pag. 

29 Lordship. Emend. S. J^q, Lo : 



Scene II.] tETtje ^mtletttau m^ljer 1 63 

Enter Corte\za^y MargaritSy and Maids. 
Corteza. And, neece, in any case remember 
this, 
Praise the old man, and when you see him first, 
Locke me on none but him, smiling and lov- 
ingly ; 40 
And then, when he comes neere, make beisance 

low, 
With both your hands thus moving, which not 

onely 
Is, as t'were, courtly, and most comely too. 
But speakes, (as who should say, " Come hither, 

Duke.") 
And yet sales nothing but you may denie. 45 

Las. Well taught, sister. 
Margaret. I, and to much end : 

I am exceeding fond to humour him. 

Las. Harke ! does he come with musicke ? 
what, and bound ? 
An amorous device : daughter, observe ! 
Enter Enchanter y with spirits singing; after them 
Me dice like Sylvanus ; next, the Duke bound y Vincen- 
tiOy Strozzay with others. 

Vincentio [aside to Strozza'^ . Now lets gull 
Medice ; I doe not doubt 5° 

But this attire put on will put him out. 

44 a5 . . . Duke. In Qq the parenthesis only includes the 
words, as . . .say. 



1 64 ®{ie ^mtleman M&}^tt [act i. 

Strozza ^aside to Vincentio^ . Weele doe our 
best to that end, therefore marke. 

Enchanter. Lady, or Princesse, both your 
choice commands, 
These spirits and I, all servants of your beautie, 
Present this royall captive to your mercie. 55 

Afar. Captive to mee a subject ? 

Fin. I, faire nimph ; 

And how the worthy mystery befell 
Sylvanus heere, this woodden god, can telL 

Alphonso. Now, my lord. 

Vin. Now is the time, man, speake. 

Me dice. Peace. 

Alp. Peace, Vincentio. 60 

Vin. Swonds, my Lord ! 
Shall I stand by and suffer him to shame you ? 
My Lord Medice ! 

Stro. Will you not speake, my lord ? 

Med. How can I ? 

Vin. But you must speake, in earnest : 

Would not your Highnesse have him speake, 

my lord? 65 

Med. Yes, and I will speake, and perhaps 
speake so 
As you shall never mend: I can, I know. 

Vin. Doe then, my good lord. 

Jlp. Medice, forth. 

Med. Goddesse, faire goddesse, for no lesse, — 
no lesse — [ Medice is at a loss. ] 



Scene il] ^^t ^eittlemau miller 165 

J/p. [to Strozza'] . No lesse, no lesse ? No 
more, no more ! Speake you. 70 

Med, Swounds ! they have put me out. 

Fin. Laugh you, fair goddesse? 

This nobleman disdaines to be your foole. 

j^/p. Vincentio, peace. 

Fin. Swounds, my lord, it is as good a shew ! 
Pray speake. Lord Strozza. 

Stro. Honourable dame — 75 

Fin. Take heede you be not out, I pray, my 
lord. 

Stro. I pray forbeare, my Lord Vincentio. 
How this destressed Prince came thus inthralde 
I must relate with words of height and wonder : 
His Grace this morning visiting the woods, 80 

And straying farre to finde game for the chase. 
At last out of a mirtle grove he rowsde 
A vast and dreadfull boare, so sterne and fierce. 
As if the feend, fell Crueltie her selfe. 
Had come to fright the woods in that strange 

shape. 85 

Jlp. Excellent good! 

Fin. [aside^ . Too good, a plague on him ! 

Stro. The princely savage being thus on 
foote, 
Tearing the earth up with his thundering hoofe, 
And with the 'nragde i^tna of his breath 

71 you. Emend. S. Qq, your. 



1 66 ©tje aentUman Wiii^tt [act i. 

Firing the ayre and scorching all the woods, 9° 
Horror held all us huntsmen from pursuit ; 
Onely the Duke, incenst with our cold feare, 
Incouragde like a second Hercules — 

rin. [aside^. Zwounds, too good, man ! 

Stro. [aside^. Pray thee let me alone. 

And like the English signe of great Saint 

George — 95 

Vin. \aside\ . Plague of that simile ! 

Stro. Gave valorous example, and, like fire, 
Hunted the monster close, and chargde so fierce 
That he inforc'd him (as our sence conceiv'd) 
To leape for soile into a cristall spring, loo 

Where on the suddaine strangely vanishing, 
Nimph-like, for him, out of the waves arose 
Your sacred figure, like Diana armde. 
And (as in purpose of the beasts revenge) 
Dischargde an arrow through his Highnesse 

breast, 105 

Whence yet no wound or any blood appearde ; 
With which the angry shadow left the light : 
And this Enchanter, with his power of spirits. 
Brake from a cave, scattering enchanted sounds 
That strooke us sencelesse, while in these strange 

bands no 

These cruell spirits thus inchainde his armes, 
And led him captive to your heavenly eyes, 
Th' intent whereof on their report relies. 



Scene ii] tElje <3mtltmm Mi^tt 1 6 7 

£■«. Bright Nimph, that boare figur'd your 
crueltie, 
Chared by love, defended by your beautie. 115 

This amorous huntsman heere we thus inthral'd, 
As the attendants on your Graces charmes, 
And brought him hither, by your bounteous hands 
To be releast, or live in endlesse bands. 

Las. Daughter, release the Duke : alas ! my 
Liege, ,20 

What meant your Highnesse to indure this 
wrong ? 
Cor. Enlarge him, neece ; come, dame, it must 

be so. 
Mar. What, madam, shall I arrogate so 

much ? 
Las. His Highnesse pleasure is to grace you so. 
JIp. Performe it then, sweete love ; it is a 
deede 125 

Worthy the office of your honored hand. 

Mar. Too worthie, I confesse, my lord, for 
me. 
If it were serious : but it is in sport. 
And women are fit actors for such pageants. 

[^S^e unbinds Alphonso.~\ 
Alp, Thanks, gracious love ; why made you 
strange of this ? 130 

115 Chared^ so Qq ; S, chased. Dr. Bradley suggests " charged," 
as in 1. q8. 



1 68 ^\)t (Qmtltmm tastier [acti. 

I rest no lesse your captive then before ; 
For, me untying, you have tied me more. 
Thanks, Strozza, for your speech ; \_to MediceJ^ 
no thanks to you. 

Med. No, thanke your sonne, my Lord ! 

Las. T'was very well, 

Exceeding well performed on every part. 135 

How say you, Bassiolo ? 

Bas. Rare, I protest, my lord. 

Cor. O, my lord Medice became it rarely; 
Me thought I likde his manlie being out ; 
It becomes noblemen to doe nothing well. 

Las. Now then, wil 't please your Grace to 
grace our house, 140 

And still vouchsafe our service further honour ? 

Alp. Leade us, my lord ; we will your daugh- 
ter leade. 

\^Exeunt all but Vincentio and Stroxxa.'^ 

Vin. You do not leade, but drag her leaden 
steps. 

Stro. How did you like my speech ? 

Vin. O fie upon 't ! 

Your rhetoricke was too fine. 

Stro. Nothing at all : 145 

I hope Saint Georges signe was grosse enough : 
But (to be serious) as these warnings passe. 

Exeunt . . . Strozza. Qq have only Exit. 
144-145 Ho'w . . . all. Qq print as three lines: Hoiv . . . 
speech f \ . . fine. \ Nothing . . . all. | 



Scene II] ^1)0 (S^tntlttnUn Mii\)tt 1 69 

Watch you your father, He watch Medice, 
That in your love-suit we may shun suspect : 
To which end, with your next occasion, urge 150 
Your love to name the person she will choose, 
By whose meanes you may safely write or meete. 

Fin. Thats our cheefe businesse : and see, 
heere she comes. 

Enter Margaret in haste. 

Mar. My lord, I onely come to say y' are 
welcome. 
And so must say farewell. 

Vin. One word, I pray. iS5 

Mar. Whats that ? 

Vin. You needes must presently devise 

What person, trusted chiefely with your guard. 
You thinke is aptest for me to corrupt. 
In making him a meane for our safe meeting. 

Mar. My fathers usher, none so fit, 160 

If you can worke him well : and so farewell. 
With thanks, my good Lord Strozza, for your 
speech. Exit [^Margaret']. 

Stro. I thanke you for your patience, mocking 
lady. 

Vin. O what a fellow haz she pickt us out ! 
One that I would have choosde past all the rest, 165 
For his close stockings onely. 

155-156 y^«^ • • • ^^'^'^^' Qq print as three lines: And 
. . . fareivell. \ One . . . that f \ You . . . de-vise. \ 



1 70 ®l)e ^entlnnan tK0t)er [act i. 

Stro. And why not 

For the most constant fashion of his hat ? 

Vin. Nay then, if nothing must be left un- 
spoke, 
For his strict forme thus still to weare his cloke. 

Stro. Well sir, he is your owne, I make no 

doubt ; 170 

For, to these outward figures of his minde. 
He hath two inward swallowing properties 
Of any gudgeons, servile avarice. 
And overweening thought of his owne worth. 
Ready to snatch at every shade of glory : 175 

And, therefore, till you can directly boord him. 
Waft him aloofe with hats and other favours, 
Still as you meete him. 

Vin. Well, let me alone ; 

He that is one mans slave is free from none. 

Exeunt [^Fincentio and Stroz.z.d\ . 

Finis Actus Primi. 



Actus Secundus. Scjena Prima. 

[^ Room in the House of Las so. '\ 

Enter Medice, Cortexa, a Page with a cuppe of secke. 

Medice. Come lady, sit you heere. Page, fill 
some sacke. 
\Aside.'\ I am to worke upon this aged dame, 
To gleane from her if there be any cause 
(In loving others) of her neeces coines 
To the most gratious love suite of the Duke : 
\To Corteza.'] Heere, noble lady, this is health- 
full drinke 
After our supper. 

Corteza. O, tis that, my lorde. 

That of all drinkes keeps life and soule in me. 
Med. Heere, fill it. Page, for this my worthy 
love : 
\_Jside.'] O how I could imbrace this good olde 
widdow ! 
Cor. Now, lord, when you do thus, you make 
me thinke 
Of my sweete husband ; for he was as like you ; 
Eene the same words and fashion, the same eies. 

To the stage-direction, jBw/fr . . . secke, Qq add, ^' Strozza 
folloiving close'' -^ but Strozza's proper entrance is marked below, 
after I. 27, 



172 ®t)e ^entlnnan Wi$\)tt [act n. 

Manly and cholerike, eene as you are, just ; 

And eene as kinde as you for all the world. 15 

Me^i. O my sweete widdow, thou dost make 
me prowd. 

Cor. Nay, I am too old for you. 

Med. Too old, thats nothing ; 

Come pledge me, wench, for I am drie againe. 
And strait will charge your widdowhood fresh, 
i faith : [Sbe drinks.'] 

Why, thats well done. 

Cor. Now, fie on *t ! heeres a draught. 20 

Med. O, it will warme your blood : if you 
should sip, 
Twould make you heart-burnd. 

Cor. Faith, and so they say : 

Yet I must tell you, since I plide this geere 
I have beene hanted with a horson paine heere. 
And every moone, almost, with a shrewd fever, 25 
And yet I cannot leave it : for, thanke God, 
I never was more sound of winde and limbe. 

Enter Strozza [close. Corteza thrusts out] a great 

bumbasted legge. 
Looke you, I warrant you I have a leg. 
Holds out as hansomly — 

Med. Beshrew my life. 

But tis a legge indeed, a goodly limbe ! 3° 

Strozza [aside] . This is most excellent ! 

Med. O that your neece 



Scene l] tETjie ^mtlemau Mni^tt 1 73 

Were of as milde a spirit as your selfe ! 

Cor. Alas, Lord Medice, would you have a 
girle 
As well seene in behaviour as I ? 
Ah, shees a fond yong thing, and growne so 

prowde, 35 

The wind must blow at west stil or sheele be 
angry. 

Afed. Masse, so me thinke [s] ; how coy shees 
to the Duke ! 
I lay my life she haz some yonger love. 

Cor. Faith, like enough. 

Med. Gods me, who should it bee ? 

Cor. If it be any — Page, a little sacke — 4° 
If it be any, harke now, if it be — 
I know not, by this sacke, — but if it be, 
Marke what I say, my lord, — I drink tee first. 

Med. Well said, good widdow, much good 
do['t] thy heart! 
So ; now, what if it be ? 

Cor. Well, if it be — 45 

To come to that I said, for so I said, — 
If it be any, tis the shrewde yong Prince ; 
For eies can speake, and eies can understand. 
And I have markt her eies ; yet, by this cup. 
Which I will onely kiss — \_Sbe drinks again. '\ 

'i^l thinkes. Emend, ed, Qq, thinke. 
44 do 'r. Emend, ed. Qq, do. 



1 74 tETlje Gentleman M&^tt [act h. 

Stro. [aside'\. O noble crone! 5° 

Now such a huddle and kettle never was. 

Cor. I never yet have scene — not yet, I say — 
But I will marke her after for your sake. 

Med. And doe, I pray ; for it is passing like ; 
And there is Strozza, a slie counsailor 55 

To the yong boy : O, I would give a limbe 
To have their knaverie limm'd and painted out. 
They stand upon their wits and paper-learning : 
Give me a fellow with a naturall wit. 
That can make wit of no wit, and wade through 60 
Great things with nothing, when their wits sticke 

fast: 
O, they be scurvie lords. 

Cor. Faith, so they be ; 

Your Lordship still is of my mind in all, 
And eene so was my husband. 

Med. [spying Strozza]. Gods my life ! 

Strozza hath evesdropt here, and over-heard us. 65 

Stro. [asidel. They have descried me. 
\_Coming forward.'] What, Lord Medice, 

Courting the lustie widow ? 

Med. I, and why not ? 

Perhaps one does as much for you at home. 

Stro. What, cholericke, man ? and toward 
wedlocke too ? 

Cor. And if he be, my lord, he may do 
woorse. 70 



Scene I] tl^\)t ^nitletttan ta0l)er 1 75 

Stro. If he be not, madame, he may do bet- 
ter. 
Enter Bassiolo with servants with rushes and a carpet. 
Bassiolo. My lords, and madame, the Dukes 
Grace intreates you 
T' attend his new-made Dutchesse for this night 
Into his presence. 

Stro. We are readie, sir. 

Exeunt \_Corteza, Medice, Strozxa and 

Bas. Come strew this roome afresh ; spread 

here this carpet ; 75 

Nay, quickly, man, I pray thee ; this way, foole ; 
Lay me it smoothe and even ; looke if he 

will! 
This way a little more ; a little there. 
Hast thou no forecast ? slood, me thinks a man 
Should not of meere necessitie be an asse. 80 

Looke how he strowes here too : come. Sir 

Giles Goosecap, 
I must do all my selfe ; lay me um thus. 
In fine smoothe threaves, looke you, sir, thus, in 

threaves. 
Perhaps some tender ladie will squat here. 
And if some standing rush should chance to 

pricke her, 85 

Shee'd squeak & spoile the songs that must be 

sung. 



176 tl^^t Gentleman Wifsi\)tt [act n. 

Efiter Fin\_centio~\ and Stroz[za\. 
Stro. See where he is ; now to him, and pre- 
pare 
Your familiaritie. 

Vincentio. Save you, master Bassiolo. 

I pray a word, sir; but I feare I let you. 
Bas. No, my good lord, no let. 
Vin. I thanke you, sir. 90 

Nay pray be coverd j O, I crie you mercie. 
You must be bare. 

Bas. Ever to you, my lord. 

Vin. Nay, not to me, sir, 
But to the faire right of your worshipfull place. 

\Vincentio uncovers^ 
Stro. ^aside~\. A shame of both your wor- 
ships. [^Exif Strozza.~\ 95 
Bas. What means your lordship ? 
Vin. Onely to doe you right, sir, and my selfe 
ease. 
And what, sir, will there be some shew to 
night ? 
Bas. A slender presentation of some musick 
And some thing else, my lord. 

Vin. T'is passing good, sir ; 100 

He not be overbold t' aske the particulars. 
Bas. Yes, if your lordship please. 
Vin. O no, good sir ; 

Enter Vincentio . . . Strozza. Qq put this direction after Strozza's 
speech. 



Scene I.] ^\)t ^^mtlettian ta0j)er 1 7 7 

But I did wonder much for, as me thought, 
I saw your hands at work. 

Bas, Or else, my lord, 

Our busines would be but badly done. 105 

Vin. How vertuous is a worthy mans exam- 
ple ! 
Who is this throne for, pray ? 

Bas. For my lords daughter, 

Whom the Duke makes to represent his 
Dutches. 
Fin. T'will be exceeding fit ; and all this 
roome 
Is passing wel preparde ; a man would sweare no 
That all presentments in it would be rare. 
Bas. Nay, see if thou canst lay um thus in 
threaves. 

[^Givrng Fincefttio a bundle of rushes. '\ 
Vin. In threaves, dee call it ? 
Bas. I, my lord, in threaves. 

Vin. A pretty terme ! 
Well, sir, I thankeyou highly for this kindnesse, 115 
And pray you alwayes make as bold with me 
For kindnesse more then this, if more may bee. 
Bas. O, my lord, this is nothing. 
Vin. Sir, tis much. 

And now He leave you, sir ; I know y' are busie. 
Bas. Faith, sir, a little. 

Vin. I commend me tee, sir. 120 

Exit Vin\jentio\. 



178 tE^^e Gentleman M&\)tt [act n. 

Bas. A courteous prince, beleeve it ; I am 
sory 
I was no bolder with him ; what a phrase 
He usde at parting ! " I commend me tee." 
He h'ate, yfaith ! 

Enter Sarpego halfe drest. 
Sarpego. Good Master Usher, will you dictate 
to me 125 

Which is the part precedent of this night-cap, 
And which posterior ? I do ignorare 
How I should weare it. 

Bas, Why, sir, this, I take it. 

Is the precedent part; I, so it is. 

Sar. And is all well, sir, thinke you ? 

Bas. Passing well. 130 

Enter Pogio and Fungus. 
Pogio. Why, sir, come on ; the usher shal be 
judge : 
See, Master Usher, this same Fungus here. 
Your lords retainer, whom I hope you rule. 
Would weare this better jerkin for the Rush- 
man 
When I doe play the Broome-man, and speake 

first. 135 

Fungus. Why, sir, I borrowed it, and I will 
weare it. 

Enter. . . drest. After this direction Qq have (?) possibly by 
mistake for ( ! ) omitted after ' * yfaith. ' ' 



Scene I] tE^t ^entletttatt tKfi?t)er 1 79 

Pog, What, sir, in spite of your lords gentle- 
man usher ? 
Fun. No spite, sir, but you have changde twice 
already. 
And now would ha't againe. 

Pog. Why, thats all one, sir, 

Gentillitie must be fantasticall. 140 

Bas. I pray thee. Fungus, let Master Pogio 

weare it. 
Fun. And what shall I weare then ? 
Pog. Why here is one 

That was a Rush-mans jerkin, and, I pray, 
Wer't not absurd then a Broome-man should 
weare it ? 
Fun. Foe ! theres a reason ; I will keepe it, 

sir. 145 

Pog. " Will," sir ? Then do your office, 
Mais-ter Usher, 
Make him put ofF his jerkin ; you may plucke 
His coate over his eares, much more his jerkin. 
Bas. Fungus, y*ad best be rulde. 
Fun. " Best," sir ! I care not. 

Pog. No, sir ? I hope you are my lords 
retainer. ^5° 

I neede not care a pudding for your lord. 
But spare not, keepe it, for perhaps He play 
My part as well in this as you in that. 

142-144 PFky . . . it. Qq print as two lines of prose. 



1 80 tirtie Gentleman Wisi}^tt [act n. 

Bas. Well said, Master Pogio. 
\_To Fungus. 1 My lord shall know it. 

Enter Cortezay with the Broom-wench ^ Rush- 
wench in their petticotesy clokes over them, with hats 
over their head- tyres. 

Cor. Looke, Master Usher, are these wags 
wel drest ? 155 

I have beene so in labour with um truly. 

Bas. Y'ave had a veriegood deliverance, ladie. 

[Jside.~\ How I did take her at her labour there, 

I use to gird these ladies so sometimes. 

Enter Lasso, with Sylvan and a Nymphy a man bugge 
and a woman \bug']^ . 
1st Bug. I pray, my lord, must not I weare 

this haire ? 160 

Lasso. I pray thee, aske my usher; come, 

dispatch. 
The Duke is readie : are you readie there ? 
2nd Bug. See, Master Usher ; must he weare 

this haire ? 
1st Bug. Pray, Master Usher, where must 

I come in ? 
2nd Bug. Am not I well for a bug, Master 

Usher? i6s 

Bas. What stirre is with these boyes here: 

God forgive me, 

160-169. Except in 1. 164 Qq use merely I. and 2, to indicate 
the bugs' speeches J 1. 169 has 1. Bug. 



Scene I] ^1)0 6nTtleman ^0l)er 1 8 1 

If t'were not for the credite on 't, I Me see 
Your apish trash afire ere I 'de indure this. 

1st Bug. But pray, good Master Usher — 

Bas. Hence, ye brats, 

You stand upon your tyre; but for your action 170 
Which you must use in singing of your songs 
Exceeding dexterously and full of life, 
I hope youle then stand like a sort of blocks 
Without due motion of your hands and heads, 
And wresting your whole bodies to your words ; 175 
Looke too 't, y' are best, and in ; go, all go in. 

Pog. Come in, my masters ; lets be out anon. 
Exeunt \all but Lasso and Bassiolo\ . 

Las. What, are all furnisht well ? 

Bas. All well, my lord. 

Las. More lights then here, and let lowd 
musicke sound. 

Bas. Sound musicke ! 180 

Exeunt \_Lasso and Bassiolo^. 
Enter Vincentioy Strozza bare, Margaret, Corteza and 

Cynanche bearing her traine. After her the Duke 

whispering with Medice, Lasso with Bassiok, k^c. 

Alphonso. Advaunce your selfe, faire Dutch- 
esse, to this throne. 
As we have long since raisde you to our heart j 
Better decorum never was beheld 
Then twixt this state and you : and as all eyes 
Now fixt on your bright graces thinke it fit, 185 
So frame your favour to continue it. 



1 8 2 tirjie Gentleman M^^tt iact h. 

Margaret. My lord, but to obey your earnest 

will, 
And not make serious scruple of a toy, 
I scarce durst have presumde this minuts height. 
Las. Usher, cause other musicke; begin your 

shew. 190 

Bas. Sound, consort ; warne the pedant to be 

readie. 
Cor. Madam, I thinke you'le see a prettie shew. 
Cynanche. I can expect no lesse in such a 

presence. 
Alp. Lo! what attention and state beautie 

breedes. 
Whose mo [v] ing silence no shrill herauldneedes. 195 
Enter Sarpego. 
Sar. Lords of high degree. 

And Ladies of low courtesie, 

I, the Pedant, here. 

Whom some call schoolmaistere, 

Because I can speake best, 200 

Approch before the rest. 
Fin. A verie good reason. 
Sar. But there are others comming. 

Without maske or mumming ; 

For they are not ashamed, 105 

If need be, to be named, 

Nor will they hide their faces 

In any place or places ; 

195 moving. Emend. S. Qq, moning. 



Scene l] xi^\)t ^mtlntian WiS\)tt 1 83 

For though they seeme to come 
Loded with rush and broome, ^^o 

The Broomeman, you must know, 
Is Seigneur Pogio, 
Nephew, as shall appeare. 
To my Lord Strozza here — 
Stro, O Lord ! I thanke you, sirj you grace 

me much. 215 

[iS^r.] And to this noble dame, 

Whome I with finger name. 

\_Pointing to Cynanche.l^ 
Fin. A plague of that fooles finger ! 
Sar, And women will ensue. 

Which, I must tell you true, aao 

No women are indeed. 
But pages made, for need. 
To fill up womens places 
By vertue of their faces. 
And other hidden graces. 225 

A hall, a hall ! whist, stil, be mum. 
For now with silver song they come. 
E^ter Pogio, Fungus, with the song, Broome-maid, 
and Rush-maid, [Sylvan, a Nymph, and two BugsJ^ 
After which Pogio [/peaks'] . 
Pog. Heroes, and heroines, of gallant straine. 
Let not these broomes motes in your eies re- 
maine, 

21 6-1 7 ^nd . . . name. In Qq these lines are given to Strozza. 
Silvan . . . Bugs. Possibly these should enter after 1. 272. 



1 84 tClje (Gentleman Wiii\)tt (act n. 

For in the moone theres one beares with'red 

bushes ; ^3° 

But we (deare wights) do beare greene broomes, 

green rushes, 
Whereof these verdant herbals, cleeped broome, 
Do pierce and enter everie ladies roome : 
And to prove them high borne, and no base trash. 
Water, with which your phisnomies you wash, 235 
Is but a broome. And, more truth to dehver. 
Grim Hercules swept a stable with a river. 
The wind, that sweepes fowle clowds out of the 

ayre. 
And for you ladies makes the welken faire. 
Is but a broome : and O Dan Titan bright, 240 
Most clearkly calld the Scavenger of Night, 
What art thou but a verie broome of gold 
For all this world not to be cride nor sold ? 
Philosophy, that passion sweepes from thought. 
Is the soules broome, and by all brave wits 

sought : 245 

Now if philosophers but broomemen are, 
Each broomeman then is a philosopher. 
And so we come (gracing your gratious Graces) 
To sweepe Cares cobwebs from your cleanly 

faces. 
j^/p. Thanks, good Master Broomeman. 
Fun. For me Rushman, then, 250 

242 FFAat . . . gold. Qq place (?) after this line. 



Scene I.] ^\)t (Snttlettian Wi^^^tV 1 85 

To make rush ruffle in a verse of ten : 
A rush, which now your heeles doe He on here — 

[Pointing to Fincetitio.'\ 

Vin. Crie mercie, sir. 

Fun. Was whilome used for a pungent speare, 
In that odde battaile, never fought but twice 255 
(As Homer sings) betwixt the frogs and mice. 
Rushes make true-love knots ; rushes make 

rings ; 
Your rush maugre the beard of Winter springs. 
And when with gentle, amorous, laysie lims 
Each lord with his faire ladie sweetly swims 260 
On these coole rushes, they may with these 

babies 
Cradles for children make, children for cradles. 
And lest some Momus here might now crie, 

"Push!'' 
Saying our pageant is not woorth a rush. 
Bundles of rushes, lo, we bring along 265 

To picke his teeth that bites them with his 
tongue. 

Stro. See, see, thats Lord Medice. 

Vin. Gods me, my lord ! 

Haz hee pickt you out, picking of your teeth ? 

Med. What picke you out of that ? 

Stro. Not such stale stuffe 

As you picke from your teeth. 

265 bring, so Qq ; P, followed by S, hung. 



1 8 6 XBl\t Gentleman m^l^ei* [act h. 

^Ip. Leave this warre with rushes .-270 

Good Master Pedant, pray, forth with your shew. 
Sar. Lo, thus farre then (brave Duke) you see 
Meere entertainement ; now our glee 
Shall march forth in Moralitie : 
^And this queint Dutchesse here shall 

see 275 

The fault of virgine nicetie, 
First wooed with rurall courtesie. 
Disburthen them, praunce on this 

ground, 
And make your exit with your round. 
[_Pogto and Fungus dance with the Broome- 
maid and Rush-maid and ] exeunt. 
Well have they daunc'd, as it is meet, 280 
Both with their nimble heades and feet. 
^ Now as our country girls held off. 
And rudely did their lovers scofF, 
Our Nymph likewise shall onely 

glaunce 
By your faire eies, and looke askaunce 285 
Upon her female friend that wooes her, 
Who is in plaine field forc'd to loose 

her. 
And after them, to conclude all 
The purlue of our pastorall, 
A female bug, and eke her friend, 290 

Shall onely come and sing, and end. 



Scene I.] ©ije (Qmtltmm tastier 1 8 7 

Bugs Song. 

[^Sar.'\ This, Lady and Dutchesse, we conclude : 
Faire virgins must not be too rude : 
For though the rurall, wilde and antike, 
Abusde their loves as they were frantike,295 
Yet take you in your ivory clutches 
This noble Duke, and be his Dutches. 
Thus thanking all for their tacete^ 
I void the roome, and cry valete. 
Exit ^SarpegOy Nymph, Sylvan and the two 
Bugs-\ . 

Alp. Generally well and pleasingly performed. 3oo 

Mar. Now I resigne this borrowed majesty, 
Which sate unseemely on my worthlesse head. 
With humble service to your Highnesse hands. 

Alp. Well you became it, lady, and I know 
All heere could wish it might be ever so. 305 

Stro. \_aside\. Heeres one saies nay to that. 

Vin. \_aside to StrQ7>'La\ . Plague on you, 
peace. 

Las. Now let it please your Highnesse to 
accept 
A homely banquet to close these rude sports. 

Alp. I thanke your Lordship much. 

Bas. Bring lights, make place. 310 

292 Thi$. B. P. L., Malone, as here, but with Thu% as catch- 
word for page. 



1 88 artie Gentleman Wisi\)tt [acth. 

Enter Pogio in his cloke and broome-mans attire. 

Pog. How d'ee, my lord ? 

Alp, O Master Broomeman, you did passing 
well. 

Vin, A ! you mad slave you ! you are a tick- 
ling actor. 

Pog, I was not out like my Lord Medice. 
How did you like me, aunt ? 

Cyn. O rarely, rarely. 315 

Stro. O thou hast done a worke of memory. 
And raisde our house up higher by a story. 

Vin. Friend, how conceit you my young 
mother heere ? 

Cyn. Fitter for you, my lord, than for your 
father. 

Vin, No more of that, sweete friend, those 
are bugs words. 320 

Exeunt \omnes\ , 

319 Fitter. . .father. Mr. P. A. Daniel suggests assigning this 
line to Bassiolo. 

Finis Actus Secundi. 



Actus Tertii Sc^ena Prima. 

[-^ Room in the House of Lasso.^ 

Medice after the song whispers alone with his servant. 

Medice. Thou art my trusty servant, and thou 
knowst 
I have beene ever bountifull lord to thee, 
As still I will be : be thou thankfull then. 
And doe me now a service of import. 

Servant. Any, my lord, in compasse of my 

life. 
Med. To morrow, then, the Duke intends to 
hunt. 
Where Strozza, my despightfull enemie, 
Will give attendance busie in the chase. 
Wherein (as if by chance, when others shoote 
At the wilde boare) do thou discharge at him. 
And with an arrow cleave his canckerd heart. 
Ser. I will not faile, my lord. 
Med. Be secret, then ; 

And thou to me shalt be the dear'st of men. 

Exeunt [^Medice and Servant']- 



190 W^t (3mtltmm Msi\)tt [acthl 

[Sc^NA SeCUNDA. 

Another Room in the House of Las so. '\ 
Enter Vincentio and Bassiolo \_severally\ . 

Vincentto [aside~\ . Now Vanitie and Policie in- 
rich me 
With some ridiculous fortune on this usher. — 
Wheres Master Usher ? 

Bas. Now I come, my lord. 

Vin. Besides, good sir, your shew did shew so 
well. 

Bas. Did it, in deede, my lord ? 

Vin. O sir, beleeve it ; 

Twas the best fashiond and well orderd thing 
That ever eye beheld : and, there withall. 
The fit attendance by the servants usde. 
The gentle guise in serving every guest 
In other entertainements ; every thing 
About your house so sortfully disposde. 
That even as in a turne-spit calld a jacke 
One vice assists another, the great wheeles, 
Turning but softly, make the lesse to whirre 
About their businesse, every different part 
Concurring to one commendable end, — 
So, and in such conformance, with rare grace, 
Were all things orderd in your good lordes house. 

Bas. The most fit simile that ever was. 



Scene u] tB^t ^entlettiait tastier 1 9 1 

Fin. But shall I tell you plainely my conceit 20 
Touching the man that I thinke causde this 
order ? 

Bas, I, good my lord. 

Fin. You note my simile ? 

Bas. Drawne from the turne-spit. 

Fin. I see you have me. 

Even as in that queint engine you have scene 
A little man in shreds stand at the winder, 25 

And seemes to put all things in act about him, 
Lifting and pulling with a mightie stirre. 
Yet addes no force to it, nor nothing does : 
So (though your lord be a brave gentleman 
And seemes to do this busines), he does nothing ; 30 
Some man about him was the festivall robe 
That made him shew so glorious and divine. 

Bas. I cannot tell, my lord, yet I should 
know 
If any such there were. 

Fin. " Should know," quoth you ; 

I warrant you know: well, some there be 35 

Shall have the fortune to have such rare men, 
(Like brave beasts to their armes) support their 
state, 

29-30 though . . . busines. In Qq the parenthesis includes only 
the ""words, though . . . gentleman. Line 30 in Qq is printed as 
two lines broken at busines. 

33-34 I . . . ivere. This speech is printed as one line in Qq. 

35 / ivarrant you know, so Qq. S, warrant you you know. 



192 ®]^e Gentleman tl^sfljer [actiu. 

When others, of as high a worth and breede, 
Are made the wasteful! food of them they feede : 
What state hath your lord made you for your 

service ? 4° 

Bas. He haz beene my good lord, for I can 
spend 
Some fifteene hundred crownes in lands a yeare, 
Which I have gotten since I servM him first. 

Vin. No more then fifteene hundred crownes 
a yeare ? 

Bas. It is so much as makes me live, my 

lord, 45 

Like a poore gentleman. 

Vin. Nay, tis prettie well : 

But certainely my nature does esteeme 
Nothing enough for vertue ; and had I 
The Duke my fathers meanes, all should be 

spent 
To keepe brave men about me : but, good sir, 50 
Accept this simple jewell at my hands. 
Till I can worke perswasion of my friendship 
With worthier arguments. 

Bas. No, good my lord, 

I can by no meanes merite the free bounties 
You have bestowed besides. 

Fin. Nay, be not strange, 55 

But doe your selfe right, and be all one man 
In all your actions ; doe not thinke but some 



Scene II.] ^1)0 (^mtlttmn Wi^\)tt 1 93 

Have extraordinarie spirits like your selfe, 
And wil not stand in their societie 
On birth and riches, but on worth and vertue, 60 
With whom there is no nicenesse, nor respect 
Of others common friendship ; be he poore 
Or basely borne, so he be rich in soule 
And noble in degrees of qualities. 
He shall be my friend sooner then a king. 65 

Bas. Tis a most kingly judgement in your 

lordship. 
Fin. Faith, sir, I know not, but tis my vaine 

humour. 
Bas. O, tis an honour in a nobleman. 
Fin. Y*ave some lords now so politike and 
prowd, 
They skorne to give good lookes to worthy 

men. 7° 

Bas. O fie upon um ! by that light, my lord, 
I am but servant to a nobleman. 
But if I would not skorne such puppet lords, 
Would I weare breathlesse. 

Fin. You, sir ? So you may. 

For they will cogge so when they wish to use 

men, 75 

With, " Pray be coverd, sir," " I beseech you 

sit," 
" Whoe 's there ? waite of Master Usher to the 
doore." 



194 ^\)t (Qmtltmnn M&l^tt [acthi. 

O, these be godly gudgeons : where 's the 

deedes, 
The perfect nobleman ? 

Bas. O, good my lord — 

Fin. Away, away, ere I would flatter so, 80 

I would eate rushes like Lord Medici. 

Bas, Well, wel, my lord, would there were 
more such princes ! 

Fin. Alas, twere pitty, sir; they would be 
guild 
Out of their very skinnes. 

Bas. Why, how are you, my lord ? 

Fin. Who, I ? I care not : 85 

If I be guild where I professe plaine love, 
T'will be their faults, you know. 

Bas. O t'were their shames. 

Fin. Well, take my Jewell, you shall not be 
strange ; 
I love not manie words. 

Bas. My lord, I thanke you ; 

I am of few words too. 

Fin. Tis friendlie said ; 90 

You prove your selfe a friend, and I would 

have you 
Advance your thoughts, and lay about for state 

78 godly, so Qq. Query ? goodly. 

89-90 / /o've . . . said. Qq print as three lines, thus : 
/ love . . . words \ My . . . too. | Tis . . . said. \ 



Scene II.] tE'\)t ^mtUttian Wiii\)tt 1 95 

Worthy your vertues : be the mineon 

Of some great king or duke : theres Medici 

The minion of my father — O the Father ! 95 

What difference is there ? But I cannot flatter; 

A word to wise men ! 

Bas. I perceive your lordship. 

Fin. " Your lordship ? " Talke you now like 
a friend ? 
Is this plaine kindnesse ? 

Bas. Is it not, my lord ? 

Fin. A palpable flattring figure for men com- 
mon : loo 
A my word I should thinke, if twere another. 
He meant to gull mee. 

Bas. Why, tis but your due. 

Fin. Tis but my due, if youle be still a 
stranger ; 
But as I wish to choose you for my friend. 
As I intend, when God shall call my father, 105 
To doe I can tell what — but let that passe, — 
Thus tis not fit ; let my friend be familiar. 
Use not [my] lordship, nor yet call me lord. 
Nor my whole name, Vincentio ; but Vince, 
As they call Jacke or Will ; tis now in use no 
Twixt men of no equallity or kindnesse. 

Bas. I shall be quickely bold enough, my 
lord. 

108 my lordship. Emend, ed. Qq, me Lordship. 



196 tCi)e Gentleman Wi&^tt [acthi. 

Fin. Nay, see how still you use that coy 
terme, " lord." 
What argues this but that you shunne my 
friendship ? 
Bas. Nay, pray, say not so. 
Fin. Who should not say so ? 115 

Will you afford me now no name at all ? 
Bas. What should I call you ? 
Fin. Nay, then tis no matter. 

But I told you, " Vince." 

Bas. Why, then, my sweete Vince. 

Fin. Whie, so then ; and yet still there is a fault 
In using these kind words without kinde deedes : 120 
Pray thee imbrace me too. 

Bas. Why, then, sweete Vince. 

[//> embraces Fin cent to. '\ 
Fin. Why, now I thank you; sblood, shall 
friends be strange ? 
Where there is plainenesse, there is ever truth : 
And I will still be plaine since I am true: 
Come, let us lie a little; I am wearie. 125 

Bas. And so am I, I sweare, since yesterday. 
^They lie down together. ~\ 
Fin. You may, sir, by my faith ; and, sirra, 
hark thee, 
What lordship wouldst thou wish to have, ifaith. 
When my old father dies ? 

Bas. Who, I? alas! 



Scene H] ^^t ^mtlemait Wi&\)tt 197 

Fin. O, not you ! Well, sir, you shall have 

none; no 

You are as coy a peece as your lords daughter. 

Bas. Who, my mistris ? 

l^in. Indeede ! Is she your mistris ? 

Bas. I, faith, sweet Vince, since she was three 
yeare old. 

Fin. And are not wee [two] friends ? 

Bas. Who doubts of that ? 

Fin. And are not two friends one? 

Bas. Even man and wife. ^35 

Fin. Then what to you she is, to me she 
should be. 

Bas. Why, Vince, thou wouldst not have her? 

Fin. O, not I ! 

I do not fancie anything like you. 

Bas. Nay, but I pray thee tell me. 

Fin. You do not meane to marry her your 
self ? 140 

Bas. Not I, by heaven ! 

Fin. Take heede now, do not gull me. 

Bas. No, by that candle ! 

Fin. Then will I be plaine. 

Thinkeyou she dotes not too much on my father ? 

Bas. O yes, no doubt on 't. 

Fin. Nay, I pray you speake. 

134 tivo. Emend. S. Qq, too. 

137-38 . . . you. Qq print this speech as one line. 



198 tB\)t (3mt\tmm Wis\)tt [acthi. 

Bas. You seely man, you ! she cannot abide 

him. H5 

Ftn. Why, sweete friend, pardon me ; alas, 
I knew not. 

Bas. But I doe note you are in some things 
simple. 
And wrong your selfe too much. 

Fin. Thanke you, good friend, 

For your playne dealing, I do meane, so well. 

Bas. But who saw ever summer mixt with 

winter? 150 

There must be equall yeares where firme love is. 
Could we two love so well so soddainely, 
Were we not some thing equaller in yeares 
Then he and shee are ? 

Fin. I cry ye mercy, sir, 

I know we could not; but yet be not too bitter, 155 
Considering love is fearefull. And, sweete friend, 
I have a letter t' intreate her kindnesse. 
Which if you would convay — 

Bas. I, if I would, sir! 

Fin. Why, fayth, deare friend, I would not 
die requitelesse. 

Bas. Would you not so, sir? 160 

By heaven ! a little thing would make me boxe you ; 
"Which if you would convaie" ! Why not, I pray, 
"Which (friend) thou shalt convaie" ? 

Fin. Which, friend, you shall then. 

^ 54-^55 I <:fy . ' . bitter. One line in Qq. 



Scene II.] ^^t ^eutlettian Wi&\)tx 199 

Bas. Well, friend, and I will then. 

Fin. And use some kinde perswasive wordes 

for me? 165 

Bas. The best, I sweare, that my poore toung 

can forge. 
Fin. I, wel said, " poore toung " ! O, tis rich 
in meekenesse ; 
You are not knowne to speake well ? You have 

wonne 
Direction of the Earle and all his house, 
The favour of his daughter and all dames 170 

That ever I sawe come within your sight. 
With a poore tongue ? A plague a your sweete 
lippes ! 
Bas. Well, we will doe our best : and, faith, 
my Vince, 
She shall have an unweldie and dull soule. 
If she be nothing moov'd with my poore 

tongue — 175 

Call it no better, be it what it will. 

Fin. Well said, ifaith. Nowif I doenotthinke 
Tis possible, besides her bare receipt 
Of that my letter, with thy friendly tongue 
To get an answere of it, never trust me. 180 

Bas. " An answer, " man ? Sbloud, make no 

doubt of that. 
Fin. By heaven I thinke so ; now a plague 
of Nature, 
That she gives all to some, and none to others ! 



200 ^\\t Gentleman metier [act m. 

Bas. \_ristng^ aside~\ . How I endeare him to 
me ! — Come, Vince, rise ; 
Next time I see her I will give her this : 185 

Which when she sees, sheele thinke it wondrous 

strange 
Love should goe by descent and make the sonne 
Follow the father in his amorous steppes. 

Vin. Shee needes must thinke it strange, that 
never yet saw 
I durst speake to her, or had scarce hir sight. 190 
Bas. Well Vince, I sweare thou shalt both 

see and kisse her. 
Vin. Sweares my deere friend ? By what ? 
Bas. Even by our friendship. 

Vin. O sacred oath ! which how long will you 

keepe ? 
Bas. While there be bees in Hybla, or white 
swannes 
In bright Meander; while the banks of Po 195 

Shall beare brave lillies ; or Italian dames 
Be called the bone robes of the world. 

Vin. 'Tis elegantly said : and when I faile. 
Let there be found in Hybla hives no bees ; 
Let no swannes swimme in bright Meander 

streame, *oo 

Nor lillies spring upon the banks of Po, 
Nor let one fat Italian dame be found, 
But leaneand brawne-falne; I, and scarsly sound. 



Scene ii] xi^\)t ^entlemait Wiii\)tt 201 

Bas. It is enough, but lets imbrace with all. 

Fin. With all my hart. 

Bas. So now farewell, sweet Vince.aos 

Exit \_Bassiolo'\. 
Fin. Farewell, my worthie friend. I thinke I 
have him. 

[^^-] enter Bassiolo. 
Bas. [aside"^ . I had forgot the parting phrase 
he taught me. — 
I commend me t'ee, sir. 

Exit [Bassiolo] instant [^r] . 
Vin. At your wisht service, sir. 

O fine friend, he had forgot the phrase : 
How serious apish soules are in vaine forme ! 210 
Well, he is mine, and he, being trusted most 
With my deare love, may often worke our meet- 

And, being thus ingagde, dare not reveale. 
Enter Pogio in haste y Strozza follozving. 

Pogio. Horse, horse, horse, my lord, horse ! 
Your father is going a hunting. 215 

Vin. " My lord horse? " You asse, you ; d'ee 
call my lord horse ? 

Strozza. Nay, he speakes huddles still ; lets 
slit his tongue. 

Pog. Nay, good unkle, now, sbloud, what 220 
captious marchants you be ; so the Duke tooke 

Exit Bassiolo. Qq place this direction after 1. 204. 



202 tB\)t (Smtleman tia0t)er [act m. 

me up even now, my lord unckle heere, and my 
old Lord Lasso. By heaven ! y* are all too witty 
for me ; I am the veriest foole on you all, He be 
sworne. 225 

Fin. Therein thou art worth us all, for thou 
knowst thy selfe. 

Stro. But your wisedom was in a pretty taking 
last night; was it not, I pray ? 

Pog. O, for taking my drink a little? Ifaith,a3o 
my lord, for that you shall the best sport 
presently with Madam Corteza that ever was ; 
I have made her so drunke that she does nothing 
but kisse my Lord Medice. See, shee comes 
riding the Duke; shees passing well mounted, 235 
beleeve it. 

Enter Alphonso, Corteza \leaning on the Duke^, 
Cynanche, [Margaret y~\ Bassiolo first y two wo- 
men attendants^ and bunts-meny Lasso. 

Alphonso. Good wench, forbeare. 

Cortexa. My lord, you must put forth your 
selfe among ladies ; I warrant you have much in 
you, if you would shew it; see, a cheeke 3240 
twentie, the bodie of a George, a good legge 
still, still a good calfe, and not [flabby] nor 
hanging, I warrant you; a brawne of a thumb 
here, and t'were a pulld partridge. Neece Meg, 

ivomen attendants. Malone and i Q in B. M. read, attendant i 
Dyce and i copy in B. M. correctly, attendants. 
242 flabby. Emend. P. Qq, slabby. 



Scene ii] ij^^t ^entlettiatt M&\)tt 203 

thou shalt have the sweetest bedfellow on himM5 
that ever call'd ladie husband ; trie him, you 
shamefac'd bable you, trie him. 

Margaret. Good Madame, be rulde. 

Cor. What a nice thing it is ! My lord, you 
must set foorth this gere, and kisse her; y faith, 15° 
you must ; get you togither and be naughts 
awhile, get you together. 

J/p. Now what a merrie, harmlesse dame 
it is ! 

Cor. My Lord Medice, you are a right noble 255 
man & wil do a woman right in a wrong 
matter, and neede be ; pray, do you give the 
Duke ensample upon me ; you come a wooing 
to me now ; I accept it. 

Lasso. What meane you, sister ? *6o 

Cor. Pray, my lord, away ; consider me as I 
am, a woman. 

Pog. [aside] . Lord, how I have whittld her ! 

Cor. You come a wooing to me now; pray 
thee, Duke, marke my Lord Medice; and do 265 
you marke me, virgin ; stand you aside, my 
lord [s] all, and you, give place. Now my Lord 
Medice, put case I be strange a little, yet you 
like a man put me to it. Come kisse me, my 
lord, be not ashamde. ^70 

266-267 my lords all^ and you, gi-ve. Emend, ed. Qq, my 
Lord, all, and you ; give. S, my lord, and all you, give. 



204 nrije Gentleman tastier [act m. 

Medice, Not I, Madame, I come not a woo- 
ing to you. 

Cor. Tis no matter, my lord, make as though 
you did, and come kisse me ; I won't be strange 
a whit. 275 

Las. Fie, sister, y' are too blame ; pray, will 
you goe to your chamber. 

Cor. Why, harke you, brother. 

Las. Whats the matter ? 

Cor. Dee thinke I am drunke ? 280 

Las. I thinke so, truly. 

Cor. But are you sure I am drunke ? 

Las. Else I would not thinke so. 

Cor. But I would be glad to be sure on 't. 

Las. I assure you then. 285 

Cor. Why, then, say nothing, & He begone. 
God bwy. Lord Duke, He come againe anone. 

Exit [Corfeza]. 

Las. I hope your Grace will pardon her, my 
Liege, 
For tis most strange ; shees as discreete a dame 
As any in these countries, and as sober, 290 

But for this onely humour of the cup. 

JIp. Tis good, my lord, sometimes. 
Come, to our hunting ; now tis time, I thinke. 

Omnes. The verie best time of the day, my lord. 

286-287 ^hy, then . . . anone. Qq arrange in two lines, 
thus; Why then , . , Duke, \ He . . . anone. 



Scene IL] XE^i^t f^mtitlttm Wi^^tt 205 

JIp. Then, my lord, I will take my leave till 
night, 295 

Reserving thanks for all my entertainment 
Till I returne ; in meane time, lovely dame. 
Remember the high state you last pre- rhlcentio] 
sented, ^ St[roz- 

And thinke it was not a mere festivall "^^l^^"/ 

shew, talked togither 

But an essentiall type of that you are aprettienuay. 
In full consent of all my faculties. 
And harke you, good my lord, — 

\He whispers to Las so. \ 
Vin. \aside to Strozza and Cynanche^ . See 

now, they whisper 
Some private order, (I dare lay my life) 
For a forc'd marriage t'wixt my love and father ; 
I therefore must make sure; and, noble friends, 305 
He leave you all when I have brought you forth. 
And seene you in the chase ; meane-while observe 
In all the time this solemne hunting lasts 
My father and his minion, Medice, 
And note if you can gather any signe 3^° 

That they have mist me, and suspect my being; 
If which fall out, send home my page Medkeivhis- 

before. P^''^ "^'^^ 

StrO. I will not faile, my lord. Huntsman a// 

Med. Now take thy time, thh 'while. 

Medice nvhispers . . . while. Qq print this as two lines in the 
margin opposite 1. 313. 



2o6 ®t)e ^nxtleman M&^tt [act m. 

[/j^] Huntsman. I warrant you, my lord, he 

shall not scape me. 
y^Ip. Now, my deere mistresse, till our sports 

intended S'S 

End with my absence, I will take my leave. 
Las. Bassiolo, attend you on my daughter. 

Exeunt \AlphonsOy Lasso y Me dicey Strozza, 
Huntsmeriy and attendants^. 

Bas. I will, my lord. 

Vin. [aside'\ . Now will the sport beginne ; 

I think my love 
Will handle him as well as I have doone. 3^0 

Exit [Fincentio\ 
Cynanche. Madam, I take my leave and hum- 

blie thanke you. 
Mar. Welcome, good madam ; mayds wait 

on my lady. Exit [Cynancbe']. 

Bas. So, mistris, this is fit. 
Mar. " Fit," sir, why so ? 

Bas. Why so ? I have most fortunate newes 

for you 
Mar. For me, sir? I beseech you what are they? 3^5 
Bas. Merit and fortune, for you both agree ; 
Merit what you have, and have what you merit. 
Mar. Lord, with what rhetorike you prepare 

your newes ! 
Bas. I need not ; for the plaine contents 

they beare, 



Scene II.] ^\)t ^entlettiaU Wi$\)tt 20 y 

Uttred in any words, deserve their welcome, 330 
And yet I hope the words will serve the turne. 
^He offers Margaret the letter. ~\ 
Mar. What, in a letter ? 
Bas. Why not ? 

Mar, Whence is it ? 

Bas. From on"e that will not shame it with 
his name ; 
And that is Lord Vincentio. 

Mar. King of Heaven ! 

Is the man madde? 

Bas. "Mad," madam! why? 335 

Mar. O heaven ! I muse a man of your im- 
portance 
Will offer to bring me a letter thus. 

Bas. Why, why, good mistresse, are you hurt 
in that ? 
Your answer may be what you will your selfe. 
Mar. I, but you should not doe it : Gods my 
life ! 340 

You shall answer it. 

Bas. Nay, you must answer it. 

Mar. I answer it ! Are you the man I trusted. 
And will betray me to a stranger thus ? 

Bas. Thats nothing, dame; all friends were 

strangers first. 
Mar. Now was there ever woman overseene so 345 
In a wise mans discretion \ 



2o8 ^\)t 6mtletttan Wiei\)tt [act m. 

Bas. Your braine is shallow ; come, receive 

this letter. 
Mar. How dare you say so, when you know 
so well 
How much I am engaged to the Duke ? 

Bas. The Duke ? A proper match ! a grave 
olde gentman, 35° 

Haz beard at will, and vvrould, in my conceyt, 
Make a most excellent patterne, for a potter, 
To have his picture stampt on a jugge. 
To keepe ale-knights in memorie of sobrietie. 
Heere, gentle madam, take it. 

Mar. "Take it," sir? 355 

Am I [a] common taker of love letters ? 

Bas. " Common ? " Why, when received you 

one before ? 
Mar. Come, tis no matter; I had thought 
your care 
Of my bestowing would not tempt me thus 
To one I know not ; but it is because 360 

You know I dote so much on your direction. 
Bas. On my direction? 

Mar. No, sir, not on yours. 

Bas. Well, mistris, if you will take my advice 
At any time, then take this letter now. 

Mar. Tis strange ; I woonder the coy gentle- 
man, 365 

353 ^j"gg^- S, a stone jug. Cf. Act iv, Sc. iv, 1. 120. 
356 I a common. Emend. S. Qq, I common. 



Scene u] w^t ^entlematt tK0l)er 209 

That seeing mee so oft would never speake, 
Is on the sodaine so far wrapt to write. 

Bas. It shewd his judgement that he would 
not speake, 
Knowing with what a strict and jealous eie 
He should be noted ; holde, if you love yourselfe ; 37° 
Now will you take this letter ? pray be rulde. 
[//> puts the letter into her hands. ] 
Mar. Come, you have such another plaguie 
toung; 
And yet, yfaith, I will not. \She drops the letter. '\ 

Bas. Lord of Heaven ! 

What, did it burne your hands ? holde, hold, I pray. 
And let the words within it fire your heart. 375 
\_He gives her the letter again. ~\ 
Mar. I woonder how the devill he found you 
out 
To be his spokesman, — O the Duke would 

thanke you 
If he knew how you urgde me for his sonne. 

\_She reads the letter."] 
Bas. [aside] . " The Duke ! " I have fretted her 
Even to the liver, and had much adoe 380 

To make her take it, but I knew t'was sure ; 
For he that cannot turne and winde a woman 
Like silke about his finger is no man. 
lie make her answer *t too. 

Mar. O here 's good stufFe ! 



2 1 o tETije <3mt\tmm tOlsfl^er [act m. 

Hold, pray take it for your paines to bring it. 3^5 
\_Sbe returns him the letter,'\ 
Bas. Ladie, you erre in my reward a little, 
Which must be a kind answere to this letter. 
Mar. Nay, then, yfaith, t'were best you 
brought a priest. 
And then your client, and then keepe the doore. 
Gods me ! I never knew so rude a man. 39° 

Bas. Wei, you shall answer ; He fetch pen 
and paper. Exit \Ba5siolo\. 

Mar. Poore usher, how wert thou wrought to 
this brake ? 
Men worke on one another for we women. 
Nay, each man on himselfe ; and all in one 
Say : " No man is content that lies alone." 395 
Here comes our gulled squire. 

^Re-enter Bassiolo.~\ 
Bas. Here, mistresse, write. 

Mar. What should I write ? 
Bas. An answer to this letter. 

Mar. Why, sir, I see no cause of answer in it. 
But if you needs will shew how much you rule 

me. 
Sit downe and answer it as you please your 

selfe ; 4°° 

Here is your paper, lay it faire afore you. 
Bas. Lady, content ; He be your secretorie. 
[He sits down to write.~\ 



Scene ii] ^\)t Gentleman Wiii^tt 2 1 1 

Afar, [aside^ . I fit him in this taske ; he 
thinkes his penne 
The shaft of Cupid in an amorous letter. 

Bas. Is heere no great worth of your answer, 
say you ? 4^5 

Beleeve it, tis exceedingly well writ. 

Mar. So much the more unfit for me to an- 
swere. 
And therefore let your stile and it contend. 

Bas. Well, you shall see I will not be farre short, 
Although (indeede) I cannot write so well 410 

When one is by, as when I am alone. 

Mar. O, a good scribe must write, though 
twenty talke. 
And he talke to them too. 

Bas. Well, you shall see. \^He writes.'] 

Mar. [aside]. A proper peece of scribes- 
ship, theres no doubt ; 
Some words pickt out of proclamations, 415 

Or great mens speeches, or well-selling pam- 
phlets : 
See how he rubbes his temples : I beleeve 
His muse lies in the backe-part of his braine. 
Which, thicke and grosse, is hard to be brought 

forward. — 
What ? is it loath to come ? 

Bas. No, not a whit : 420 

Pray hold your peace a little. 



2 1 2 tB^t Gentleman Wi&^tt [Act in. 

Afar, [aside]. He sweates with bringing on 
his heavie stile ; 
He plie him still, till he sweate all his wit out. — 
What, man, not yet ? 

Bas. Swoons, yowle not extort it from a man .U^S 
How do you like the word, " endeare " ? 

Mar. O, fie upon 't ! 

Bas. Nay, then I see your judgement : what 
say you to " condole " ? 

Mar. Worse and worse. 43° 

Bas. O brave ! I should make a sweete 
answer, if I should use no words but of your 
admittance. 

Mar. Well, sir, write what you please. 

Bas. Is " modell " a good word with you ? 435 

Mar. Put them togither, I pray. 

Bas. So I will, I warrant you. [//> writes.'] 

Mar. [aside]. See, see, see, now it comes 
powring downe. 

Bas. I hope youle take no exceptions to '' be-44o 
leeve it." 

Mar. Out upon 't ! that phrase is so runne 
out of breath in trifles that we shall have no 
beleefe at all in earnest shortly. " Beleeve it, 
tis a prettie feather " ; " Beleeve it, a daintie44S 
rush " ; " Beleeve it, an excellent cocks-combe." 

Bas. So, so, so, your exceptions sort very 
collaterally. 



Scene ii] tETije i^tntlttmn tlll0t)er 2 1 3 

Afar. " Collaterally " ? Theres a fine word 
now ; wrest in that if you can by any meanes. 45° 

Bas. I thought she would like the very worst 
of them all ! How thinke you? Do not I write, 
and heare, and talke, too, now ? 

Mar, By my soule, if you can tell what you 
write now, you write verie readily. 455 

Bas. That you shall sec straight. 
Mar. But do you not write that you speake 
now ? 

Bas. O yes, doe you not see how I write it ? 
I can not write when any bodie is by me, I ! 460 

Mar. Gods my life ! stay man ; youle make 
it too long. 

Bas. Nay, if I can not tell what belongs to 
the length of a ladies device, yfaith ! 

Mar. But I will not have it so long. 465 

Bas. If I can not fit you ? 

Mar. O me, how it comes upon him ! pre 

thee be short. 
Bas. Wei, now I have done, & now I wil 
reade it : 
[^Reads.l " Your lordships motive accomodat- 
ing my thoughts with the very model of47o 
my hearts mature consideration, it shall 
not be out of my element to negotiate 
with you in this amorous duello; wherein 
I will condole with you that our project 
cannot be so collaterally made as our475 



214 ®^e Gentleman ^0l)er [act m. 

endeared hearts may verie well seeme to 
insinuate." 

Mar. No more, no more ; fie upon this ! 

Bas. " Fie upon this " ? Hees accurst that haz 
to doe with these unsound women of judgement 1480 
if this be not good, yfaith ! 

Mar. But tis so good, t'will not be thought 
to come from a womans braine. 

Bas. Thats another matter. 

Mar. Come, I will write my selfe. 485 

\_She sits down to write.'] 

Bas. A Gods name, lady ! and yet I will not 
loose this, I warrant you ; \_folding up the letter. '^ 
I know for what ladie this will serve as fit. Now 
we shall have a sweete peece of inditement. 

Mar. How spell you " foolish " ? 490 

Bas. F, 00, 1, i, sh. \^Aside^ She will pre- 
sume t* endite that cannot spel. 

Mar. How spell you " usher " ? 

Bas. Sblood, you put not in those words to- 
gither, do you ? 495 

Mar. No, not togither. 

Bas. What is betwixt, I pray ? 

Mar. " Asse the." 

Bas. " Asse the " ? Betwixt " foolish," and 
" usher " ! Gods my life, " foolish asse the 500 
Usher " ! 

Mar. Nay then, you are so jealous of your 
wit ! Now reade all I have written, I pray. 



Scene II] ^\)t (Qtntltmm WiSi^tt 2 1 5 

Bas. [reads^. " I am not so foolish as the 
Usher would make me," — O, "so foolish as 5^5 
the Usher would make me " ? Wherein would 
I make you foolish ? 

Mar. Why, sir, in willing me to beleeve he 
lov'd me so wel, being so meere a stranger. 

Bas, O, is 't so ? You may say so, indeed. 51° 

Mar. Crie mercie, sir, and I will write so 
too. \_She begins to write .^ but stops. '\ And yet 
my hand is so vile. Pray thee, sit thee downe 
and write as I bid thee. 

Bas. With all my heart, lady. What shall 1 5^5 
write now ? 

Mar. You shall write this, sir : 

I am not so foolish to thinke you love me, 
being so meere a stranger — 

Bas. [writing] . " So meere a stranger " ! 5»o 

Mar. And yet I know love works strangely — 

Bas. " Love workes strangely — " 

Mar. And therefore take heed by whom you 
speake for love — 

Bas. " Speake for love — " 525 

Mar. For he may speake for himselfe. 

Bas. " May speake for himselfe — '* 

Mar. Not that I desire it — 

Bas. " Desire it — " 

Mar. But if he do, you may speede, I con- 53° 
fesse. 

512 too. And yet. Emend, ed, Qq, too, & yet. 



2 1 6 ^\)t ^rntleman tastier [act m. 

Bas. " Speede, I confesse — " 

A^ar. But let that passe, I do not love to 
discourage any bodie; — 

Bas. " Discourage any bodie — " 535 

Afar, Do you, or he, picke out what you 
can ; & so farewell. 

Bas. " And so fare well." Is this all ? 

Afar. I, and he may thanke your syrens 
tongue that it is so much. 540 

Bas. [looking over the Ietter~\ . A proper let- 
ter, if you marke it. 

Mar. Well, sir, though it be not so proper 
as the writer, yet tis as proper as the inditer ; 
everie woman cannot be a gentleman usher ; 545 
they that cannot go before must come behind. 

Bas. Well, ladie, this I will carrie instantly ; 
I commend me tee, ladie. Exit [Bassiolo^. 

Mar. Pittifull usher, what a prettie sleight 
Goes to the working up of everie thing! 55° 

What sweet varietie serves a womans wit ! 
We make men sue to us for that we wish. 
Poore men, hold out a while, and do not sue. 
And spite of custome we will sue to you. 

Exit [Margaret"] . 



Finis Actus Tertii. 



Actus Quarti Sc^na Prima. 

[^Before the House of Strozza."^ 

Enter Pogio running in^ and knocking at Cynanches 
doore, 

Pogio. O God, how wearie I am! Aunt, 
Madam Cynanche, aunt ! 

[^Enter Cynanche.!^ 
Cynanche. How now? 

Pog. O God, aunt ! O God, aunt ! O God ! 
Cyn. What bad newes brings this man ? Where 

is my lord ? 
Pog. O aunt, my uncle ! hees shot. 
Cyn. " Shot ! " ay me ! 

How is he shot ? 

Pog. Why, with a forked shaft, 

As he was hunting, full in his left side. 

Cyn. O me accurst, where is hee ? Bring me; 

where ? 
Pog. Comming with Doctor Benivemus; 
He leave you, and goe tell my Lord Vincentio. 

Exit \_Pogio']. 

Enter Benivemus with others ^ bringing in Strozza with 
an arrow in his side. 
Cyn. See the sad sight ; I dare not yeeld to 
griefe, 



2 1 8 Wi^t (3mtltmnn tastier [act iv. 

But force faind patience to recomfort him. 
My lord, what chance is this ? How fares your 
lordship ? 
Strozza. Wounded, and faint with anguish; 

let me rest. 15 

Benivemus. A chaire. 

Cyn. O Doctor, ist a deadly hurt ? 

Ben. I hope not, madam, though not free 

from danger. 
Cyn. Why plucke you not the arrow from 

his side ? 
Ben. We cannot, lady, the forckt head so fast 
Stickes in the bottome of his sollide ribbe. 20 

Stro. No meane then. Doctor, rests there to 

educe it ? 
Ben. This onely, my good lord, to give your 
wound 
A greater orifice, and in sunder break 
The pierced ribbe, which being so near the mid- 

rifFe, 
And opening to the region of the heart, 45 

Will be exceeding dangerous to your life. 

Stro. I will not see my bosome mangled so, 
Nor sternely be anatomizde alive; 
He rather perish with it sticking still. 

Cyn. O, no ; sweete Doctor, thinke upon 

some help. 3° 

Ben. I tolde you all that can be thought in arte, 



Scene I.] ^j^t ^mtletttan MSf\\tt 2 1 9 

Which since your lordship will not yeelde to use, 
Our last hope rests in Natures secret aide, 
Whose power at length may happily expell it. 

Stro. Must we attend at Deaths abhorred 
doore 35 

The torturing delaies of slavish Nature ? 
My life is In mine owne powers to dissolve : 
And why not then the paines that plague my 

Hfe ? 
Rise, Furies, and this furie of my bane 
Assaile and conquer : what men madnesse call 40 
(That hath no eye to sense, but frees the soule, 
Exempt of hope and feare, with instant fate) 
Is manliest reason ; manliest reason, then. 
Resolve and rid me of this brutish life. 
Hasten the cowardly protracted cure 45 

Of all diseases : King of phisitians. Death, 
He dig thee from this mine of miserie. 

Cyn. O, hold, my lord ; this is no Christian 
part. 
Nor yet skarce manly, when your mankinde foe. 
Imperious Death, shall make your grones his 

trumpets 5° 

To summon resignation of Lifes fort. 
To flie without resistance ; you must force 
A countermine of fortitude, more deepe 
Than this poore mine of paines, to blow him up. 
And spight of him live victor, though subdu'd : 55 



220 tD^tie Gentleman Wi&}^tt [activ. 

Patience in torment is a valure more 

Than ever crownd th' Alcmenean conquerour. 

Stro. Rage is the vent of torment ; let me rise. 

Cyn. Men doe but crie that rage in miseries, 
And scarcely beaten children become cries : 60 

Paines are like womens clamors, which the lesse 
They find mens patience stirred, the more they 

cease. 
Of this tis said, afflictions bring to God, 
Because they make us like him, drinking up 
Joyes that deforme us with the lusts of sense, 65 
And turne our generall being into soule, 
Whose actions, simply formed and applied. 
Draw all our bodies frailties from respect. 

Stro. Away with this unmedcinable balme 
Of worded breath ; forbeare, friends, let me rest j 70 
I sweare I will be bands unto my selfe. 

Ben. That will become your lordship best 
indeed. 

Stro. He breake away, and leape into the sea. 
Or from some turret cast me hedlong downe. 
To shiver this fraile carkasse into dust. 75 

Cyn. O my deare lord, what unlike words are 
these 
To the late fruits of your religious noblesse ? 

Stro. Leave me, fond woman. 

Cyn. He be hewne from hence 

Before I leave you ; helpe me, gentle Doctor. 



Scene II] ^^t ^eittleman Wi^^tt 2 2 1 

Ben. Have patience, good my lord. 
Stro. Then leade me in, 80 

Cut ofF the timber of this cursed shaft. 
And let the fork'd pile canker to my heart. 
Cyn. Deare lord, resolve on humble sufferance. 
Stro. I will not heare thee, woman ; be con- 
tent. 
Cyn. O never shall my counsailes cease to 
knocke 85 

At thy impatient eares till they flie in 
And salve with Christian patience pagan sinne. 

Exeunt [omnes'j. 

[SciENA SeCUNDA. 

J Room in the House of Las so. '\ 

Enter Vincentio with a letter in his hand, [and} Bassiolo. 

Bassiolo. This is her letter, sir ; you now shall 
see 
How seely a thing tis in respect of mine. 
And what a simple woman she haz prov'd 
To refuse mine for hers ; I pray looke heere. 
Vincentio. Soft, sir, I know not, I being her 
sworn servant, 5 

If I may put up these disgracefull words. 
Given of my mistris, without touch of honour. 
Bas. " Disgracefull words ! " I protest I speake 
not 



222 turtle Gentleman ta^ljer [act iv. 

To disgrace her, but to grace my selfe. 

Vin. Nay then, sir, if it be to grace your 
selfe, lo 

I am content ; but otherwise, you know, 
I was to take exceptions to a king. 

Bas. Nay, y' are ith right for that ; but reade, 
I pray ; 
If there be not more choice words in that letter 
Than in any three of Guevaras Golden Epistles^ 15 
I am a very asse. How thinke you, Vince ? 

Vin. By heaven, no lesse, sir ; it is the best 
thing — He rends it \as if by mistake^ . 
Gods, what a beast am I ! 

Bas. It is no matter, 

I can set it together againe. 

Fin. Pardon me, sir, I protest I was ravisht : 20 
But was it possible she should preferre 
Hers before this ? 

Bas. O sir, she cride " Fie upon this " ! 

Fin. Well, I must say nothing ; love is blind, 
you know, and can finde no fault in his beloved. 25 

Bas. Nay, thats most certaine. 

Fin. Gee 't me ; He have this letter. 

Bas. No, good Vince, tis not worth it. 

Fin. He ha 't, ifaith. [Taking Bassio/o's letter. "] 

13—16 Nay . . . Vince. Prose in Qq and in S. 
20-22 Pardon . . . this. Prose in Qq and in S. 
23-32 sir . . . tivere. These lines might be forced into 
rough metrical form j but the rhythm seems that of prose. 



Scene II] tCfje (Qtritltm^Vi Wi$^tt 223 

Heeres enough in it to serve for my letters as 30 
long as I live ; He keepe it to breede on as 
tw^ere. 

But I much wonder you could make her write. 
Bas. Indeede there were some words belongd 

to that. 
Fin. How strong an influence works in well- 
plac'd words ! 35 

And yet there must be a prepared love 
To give those words so mighty a command, 
Or twere impossible they should move so much : 
And will you tell me true ? 

Bas. In any thing. 

Fin. Does not this lady love you ? 4° 

Bas. Love me ? Why, yes ; I thinke she 

does not hate me. 
Fin. Nay, but, ifaith, does she not love you 

dearely ? 
Bas. No, I protest. 

Fin. Nor have you never kist her ? 

Bas. Kist her ! Thats nothing. 
Fin. But you know my meaning : 

Have you not beene, as one would say, afore 

me ? 45 

Bas. Not I, I sweare. 

Fin. O, y* are too true to tell. 

Bas. Nay, be my troth, she haz, I must con- 
fesse, 



224 W\)t Gentleman metier [act iv. 

Usde me with good respect and nobly still, 
But for such matters — 

Fin. [aside]. Verie little more 

Would make him take her maidenhead upon 

him. — 50 

Well, friend, I rest yet in a little doubt. 
This was not hers. 

[Pointing to Margaret* s letter.] 

Bas. T'was, by that light that shines; 

And He goe fetch her to you to confirme it 

Vin. O passing friend ! 

Bas. But when she comes, in any case be bold, S5 
And come upon her with some pleasing thing. 
To shew y' are pleasde, how ever she behaves 

her: 
As, for example, if she turne her backe. 
Use you that action you would doe before. 
And court her thus : 60 

" Lady, your backe part is as faire to me 
As is your fore part." 

Vin. T'will be most pleasing. 

Bas. I, for if you love 

One part above another, tis a signe 
You love not all alike ; and the worst part 65 

About your mistris you must thinke as faire. 
As sweete and daintie, as the very best, 

61-62 Lady . . . part. Printed as prose in Qq, continuously 
with 1. 60, thus : And court . . . part. 



Scene IL] ^\)t €^mtltmm Wi&}^tX 22 S 

So much for so much, and considering, too, 
Each severall limbe and member in his kinde. 
Fin. As a man should. 

Bas. True ; will you thinke of this ? 70 

Fin. I hope I shall. 

Bas. But if she chance to laugh, 

You must not lose your countenance, but devise 
Some speech to shew you pleasde, even being 
laugh'd at. 
Fin. I, but what speech ? 
Bas. Gods pretious, man ! do something of 
your selfe ! 75 

But He devise a speech. He studies. 

Fin. [aside'] . Inspire him, Folly ! 

Bas. Or tis no matter ; be but bold enough. 
And laugh when she laughs, and it is enough : 
He fetch her to you. Exit \_Bassiolo\ . 

Fin. Now was there ever such a demilance, 80 
To beare a man so cleare through thicke and 
thinne ? 

[^^-] enter Bassiolo. 
Bas. Or harke you, sir, if she should steale a 
laughter 
Under her fanne, thus you may say, " Sweete 

lady. 
If you will laugh and lie downe, I am pleasde." 

70-71 As . . . laugh. Qq print as three lines : As . . , 
should. I True . . . shall. \ But . . . laugh. | 



226 turtle Gentleman Mn^tt Iact iv. 

Fin. And so I were, by heaven ; how know 

you that ? 85 

Bas. Slid, man. He hit your very thoughts in 

these things. 
Fin. Fetch her, sweete friend; He hit your 

words, I warrant. 
Bas. Be bold then, Vince, and presse her to 
it hard. 
A shame-fac'd man is of all women barr'd. 

Exif [^Bassio/o]. 
Fin. How easly worthlesse men take worth 

upon them, 9° 

And being over credulous of their owne worth, 
Doe underprize as much the worth of others. 
The foole is rich, and absurd riches thinks 
All merit is rung out where his purse chinks. 
\^Re-']enter Bassioloy and Margaret. 
Bas. My lord, with much intreaty heeres my 
lady. 95 

Nay, maddam, looke not backe : why, Vince, I 
say ! 
Margaret [aside"]. "Vince"? O monstrous 

jeast ! 
Bas. To her, for shame ! 

\_As Fincentio approaches y Margaret turns 
her back upon him.'] 
Fin. Lady, your backe part is as sweete to me 
as all your fore part. 



Scene il] ®tie Gentleman Wisi^tx 227 

Bas, [aside]. He miss'd a little: he said herioo 
back part was " sweet '*, when he should have 
said " faire " ; but see, she laughs most fitly to 
bring in the tother. 
Vince, to her againe ; she laughs. 

Vtn. Laugh you, faire dame ? 

If you will laugh and lie downe, I am pleasde. 105 
Mar. What villanous stufFe is heere ? 
Bas. Sweete mistris, of meere grace imbolden 
now 
The kind young prince heere; it is onely love, 
Upon my protestation, that thus daunts 
His most heroicke spirit: so a while '^o 

He leave you close together ; Vince, I say — 

Exit [Bassio/o]. 
Mar. O horrible hearing ! Does he call you 

Vince ? 
Vin. O I, what else ? And I made him im- 
brace me. 
Knitting a most familiar league of friendship. 
Mar. But wherefore did you court me so ab- 
surdly ? "5 
Vin. Gods me, he taught me ! I spake out of 

him. 
Mar. O fie upon 't ! Could you for pitty make 
him 

104 Vince . . . laughs. Qq print as prose like the foregoing 
lines of this speech. 



228 gr^e Gentleman tm^^er [act iv. 

Such a poore creature ? Twas abuse enough 
To make him take on him such sawcie friend- 
ship ; 
And yet his place is great; for hees not onely 120 
My fathers usher, but the worlds beside, 
Because he goes before it all in folly. 

Vin. Well, in these homely wiles must our 
loves maske. 
Since power denies him his apparant right. 

Mar. But is there no meane to dissolve that 
power, 125 

And to prevent all further wrong to us. 
Which it may worke by forcing mariage rites 
Betwixt me and the Duke ? 

Vin. No meane but one, 

And that is closely to be maried first. 
Which I perceive not how we can performe ; 13° 
For at my fathers comming backe from hunting, 
I feare your father and himselfe resolve 
To barre my interest with his present nuptialls. 

Mar. That shall they never doe ; may not we 
now 
Our contract make, and marie before heaven ? 135 
Are not the lawes of God and Nature more 
Than formall lawes of men ? Are outward rites 
More vertuous then the very substance is 
Of holy nuptialls solemnizde within ? 

123 loves, so Qq. Query? love. 



Scene ii.i ®t)e ^mtlematt tia0t)er 229 

Or shall lawes made to curbe the common world, H© 
That would not be contained in forme without 

them, 
Hurt them that are a law unto themselves ? 
My princely love, tis not a priest shall let us : 
But since th* eternall acts of our pure soules 
Knit us with God, the soule of all the world, 145 
He shall be priest to us ; and with such rites 
As we can heere devise we will expresse 
And strongly ratifie our hearts true vowes, 
Which no externall violence shall dissolve. 
Vin, This is our onely meane t' enjoy each 

other: 150 

And, my deare life, I will devise a forme 
To execute the substance of our mindes 
In honor'd nuptialls. First, then, hide your face 
With this your spotlesse white and virgin vaile : 
Now this my skarfe He knit about your arme, ^55 
As you shall knit this other end on mine. 
And as I knit it, heere I vow by heaven. 
By the most sweete imaginarie joyes 
Of untride nuptialls, by Loves ushering fire 
Fore-melting beautie, and Loves flame it selfe, 160 
As this is soft and pliant to your arme 
In a circumferent flexure, so will I 
Be tender of your welfare and your will 
As of mine owne, as of my life and soule, 
In all things and for ever; onelie you 165 



230 tirije Gentleman tm^^ier [act iv. 

Shall have this care in fulnesse, onely you 
Of all dames shall be mine, and onely you 
He court, commend, and joy in, till I die. 

Mar. With like conceit on your arme this I tie, 
And heere in sight of heaven, by it I sweare, 170 
By my love to you, which commands my life. 
By the deare price of such a constant husband 
As you have vowed to be, and by the joy 
I shall imbrace by all meanes to requite you. 
He be as apt to governe as this silke, 175 

As private as my face is to this vaile. 
And as farre from offence as this from black- 

nesse. 
I will be courted of no man but you. 
In and for you shall be my joyes and woes : 
If you be sicke, I will be sicke, though well ; 180 
If you be well, I will be well, though sicke : 
Your selfe alone my compleat world shall be. 
Even from this houre to all eternity. 

Vin. It is inough, and binds as much as 
marriage. 

\Re-'\enter Bassiolo. 
Bas. He see in what plight my poore lover 
stands. 185 

Gods me ! a beckons me to have me gone, 
It seemes hees entred into some good vaine : 
He hence ; Love cureth when he vents his 
paine. Exit \_Bassiolo\, 



Scene II.] ^\)t ^entlemait tastier 231 

Fin. Now, my sweet life, we both remember 
well 
What we have vow'd shall all be kept entire 190 
Maugre our fathers wraths, danger, and death : 
And to confirme this shall we spend our breath ? 
Be well advisde, for yet your choice shall be 
In all things, as before, as large and free. 

Mar. What I have vow'd. He keepe even past 
my death. 195 

Fin. And I : and now in token I dissolve 
Your virgin state, I take this snowie vaile 
From your much fairer face, and claime the dues 
Of sacred nuptialls : and now, fairest Heaven, 
As thou art infinitely raisde from earth, ^oo 

DifFrent and opposite, so blesse this match. 
As farre remov'd from customes popular sects. 
And as unstaind with her abhorr'd respects. 
[^Re-~\enter Bassiok. 

Bas. Mistris, away ; Pogio runnes up and 
downe. 
Calling for Lord Vincentio ; come away, 205 

For hitherward he bends his clamorous haste. 

Mar. Remember, love. 

Exit Mar [garef\ and Bassiolo. 

Fin. Or else forget me Heaven ! 

Why am I sought for by this Pogio ? 
The asse is great with child of some ill newes. 
His mouth is never fill'd with other sound. 210 



232 tlPtie Gentleman metier (activ. 

Enter Pogio. 
Pogio. Where is my Lord Vincentio ? Where 

is my lord ? 
Vin. Here he is, asse; what an exclaiming 

keep'st thou ! 
Pog. Slood, my lord, I have followed you up 
and downe like a Tantalus pig, till I have worne 
out my hose here abouts. He be sworne, and yet 215 
you call me asse still ; but I can tell you passing 
ill newes, my lord. 

Vin. I know that well, sir ; thou never bringst 
other. 
Whats your newes now, I pray ? 

Pog. O Lord ! my lord uncle is shot in the aao 
side with an arrow. 

Fin, Plagues take thy tongue ! Is he in any 

danger ? 
Pog. O, danger, I ; he haz lien speechlesse 
this two houres, and talkes so idlely. 

Vin. Accursed newes ! Where is he ? Bring 

me to him. a*S 

Pog. Yes, do you lead, and He guide you to 
him. Exeunt [Fin cent to and Pogio']. 

218-219 I ' • ' pf'^y- A3 prose in Qq. 



Scene iii.i ©tje i&mtltmm mslier 233 

[SCiENA TeRTIA. 

j4 Room in the House 0/ Sirozza."] 

Enter Strozza brought in a chaire^ Cynanche^ with 
others. 

Cynanche. How fares it now with my deare 
lord and husband ? 

Strozza. Come neere me, wife ; I fare the 
better farre 
For the sweete foode of thy divine advice. 
Let no man value at a little price 
A vertuous womans counsaile ; her wingM spirit 5 
Is featherd oftentimes with heavenly words, 
And (like her beautie) ravishing and pure ; 
The weaker bodie, still the stronger soule ; 
When good endevours do her powers applie. 
Her love drawes neerest mans felicitie. 10 

O what a treasure is a vertuous wife. 
Discreet and loving! Not one gift on earth 
Makes a mans life so highly bound to heaven ; 
She gives him double forces, to endure 
And to enjoy, by being one with him, 15 

Feeling his joies and griefes with equall sence ; 
And, like the twins Hypocrates reports. 
If he fetch sighes, she drawes her breath as short : 

Cynanche, ivith others. Qq read Cynanche, Benenemus, with 
others. But Benivemus does not enter till after 1. 85. 



234 tET^e Gentleman Wiai^tt [act iv. 

If he lament, she melts her selfe in teares : 

If he be glad, she triumphs : if he stirre, ao 

She moov's his way : in all things his sweete 

ape : 
And is, in alterations passing strange, 
Himselfe divinely varied without change. 
Gold is right pretious, but his price infects 
With pride and avarice ; Aucthority lifts 25 

Hats from mens heades, and bowes the strongest 

knees. 
Yet cannot bend in rule the weakest hearts ; 
Musicke delights but one sence, nor choice 

meats ; 
One quickly fades, the other stirre to sinne ; 
But a true wife both sence and soule delights, 3° 
And mixeth not her good with any ill ; 
Her vertues (ruling hearts) all powres command; 
All store without her leaves a man but poore j 
And with her, povertie is exceeding store ; 
No time is tedious with her ; her true woorth 35 
Makes a true husband thinke his armes enfold 
(With her alone) a compleate worlde of gold. 

Cyn. I wish (deare love) I could deserve as 
much 
As your most kinde conceipt hath well exprest : 
But when my best is done, I see you wounded, 4° 
And neither can recure nor ease your pains. 

Stro. Cynanche,thy advise hath made me well ; 



Scene iiii ^jje ^eutlettian tastier 235 

My free submission to the hand of Heaven 
Makes it redeeme me from the rage of paine. 
For though I know the malice of my wound 45 
Shootes still the same distemper through my 

vaines, 
Yet the judiciall patience I embrace, 
(In which my minde spreads her impassive powres 
Through all my sufFring parts) expels their 

frailetie, 
And rendering up their whole life to my soule, 5° 
Leaves me nought else but soule ; and so, like 

her. 
Free from the passions of my fuming blood. 
Cyn. Would God you were so; and that too 

much payne 
Were not the reason you felt sence of none. 
Stro. Thinkst thou me mad, Cynanche ? for 

mad men, 55 

By paynes ungovernd, have no sense of payne. 
But I, I tell you, am quite contrary, 
Easde with well governing my submitted payne. 
Be cheerd then, wife ; and looke not for, in 

mee. 
The manners of a common wounded man : 60 

Humilitie hath raisde me to the starres ; 
In which (as in a sort of cristall globes) 
I sit and see things hidde from humane sight. 
I, even the very accidents to come 



236 ®t)e ^mtleman tia^^rr [act iv. 

Are present with my knowledge; the seventh 

day 65 

The arrow head will fall out of my side. 
The seaventh day, wife, the forked head will out. 

Cyn. Would God it would, my lord, and 
leave you wel ! 

Stro. Yes, the seventh day, I am assurd it 
will: 
And I shall live, I know it ; I thanke heaven, 70 
I knowe it well ; and He teach my phisition 
To build his c[u]res heereafter upon heaven 
More then on earthly medcines ; for I knowe 
Many things showne me from the op'ned skies 
That passe all arts. Now my phisition 75 

Is comming to me, he makes friendly haste ; 
And I will well requite his care of mee. 

Cyn. How knowe you he is comming ? 

Stro. Passing well ; 

And that my deare friend. Lord Vincentio, 
Will presently come see me too ; He stay 80 

(My good phisition) till my true friend come. 

Cyn. \astde\ . Ay me, his talke is idle, and, I 
feare. 
Foretells his reasonable soule now leaves him. 

Stro. Bring my physition in, hee 's at the 
doore. 

72 cures. Emend, ed. .Qq, cares. 

78-79 Passing . . . Vincentio. Qq print this as one line. 



Scene III] ^\^t ^etttletttan metier 237 

Cyn. Alas theres no physition ! 
Stro. But I know it ; 85 

See, he is come. 

Enfer Benevemius, 
Benevemus. How fares my worthy lord ? 
Stro. Good Doctor, I endure no paine at all, 
And, the seaventh day, the arrowes head will out. 
Ben. Why should it fall out the seventh day, 

my lord ? 
Stro. I know it ; the seventh day it will not 

faile. 90 

Ben. I wish it may, my lord. 
Stro. Yes, t'will be so. 

You come with purpose to take present leave. 
But you shall stay a while ; my lord Vincentio 
Would see you faine, and now is comming 
hither. 
Ben. How knowes your lordship ? Have you 

sent for him ? 95 

Stro. No, but t'is very true ; hee 's now hard 

And will not hinder your affaires a whit. 

Ben. [aside']. How want of rest distempers his 
light braine ! 
Brings my lord any traine ? 

Stro. None but himselfe. 

85-86 Alas . . . lord. Qq print as four lines. Alas . . . 
Physition. | But . . . //. \ See . . . come. | Hoiv . . . lord? | 



238 ®tie Gentleman Wial^tt [activ. 

My nephew Pogio now hath left his grace. 100 

Good Doctor, go, and bring him by his hand 
(Which he will give you) to my longing eyes. 

Ben. Tis strange, if this be true. 

Exit [Benevemus^. 

Cyn. The Prince, I thinke, 

Yet knowes not of your hurt. 

Enter Vincentio^ holding the Doctors hand. 
Stro. Yes, wife, too well. 

See, he is come ; welcome, my princely friend : 105 
I have been shot, my lord ; but the seventh day 
The arrowes head will fall out of my side. 
And I shall live. 

Vincentio. I doe not feare your life ; 

But, Doctor, is it your opinion 
That the seventh day the arrow head will out ? "o 
Stro. No, t'is not his opinion, t'is my know- 
ledge : 
For I doe know it well ; and I do wish 
Even for your onely sake, my noble lord. 
This were the seventh day, and I now were 

well. 
That I might be some strength to your hard 

state, 115 

For you have many perils to endure : 
Great is your danger, great ; your unjust ill 

103-104 Tis , .. nvell. Qq print as four lines. Tis . . . true, j 
The . . . thinke, | Yet . . . hurt. | Tes . . . •we/I. | 



Scene III] ®t)e ^entlettiatx ta^ljer 239 

Is passing foule and mortall ; would to God 
My wound were something well, I might be with 

you. 
Nay, do not whisper; I know what I say 120 

Too well for you, my lord ; I wonder heaven 
Will let such violence threat an innocent life. 

Vin, What ere it be, deare friend, so you be 
well, 
I will endure it all ; your wounded state 
Is all the daunger I feare towards me. 125 

Stro. Nay, mine is nothing ; for the seventh day 
This arrow head will out, and I shall live ; 
And so shall you, I thinke ; but verie hardly. 
It will be hardly you will scape indeed. 

Vin. Be as will be; pray heaven your prophecie 130 
Be happily accomplished in your selfe, 
And nothing then can come amisse to me. 

Stro. What sayes my doctor? Thinks he I say 
true ? 

Ben. If your good lordship could but rest a 
while, 
I would hope well. 

Stro. Yes, I shall rest, I know, 135 

If that will helpe your judgement. 

Ben. Yes, it will. 

And, good my lord, lets helpe you in to trie. 

Stro. You please me much, I shall sleepe 
instantly. Exeunt [omnes^ . 



240 ^\)t ^entlnnan Wi&litt [act iv. 

[SciENA QUARTA. 

y^ Room in the House of Las so. "^ 
Enter Alphonso and Medice. 

Alphonso. Why should the humorous boy for- 
sake the chace, 
As if he tooke advantage of my absence 
To some act that my presence would offend ? 

Medice. I warrant you, my lord, t'is to that end : 
And I beleeve he wrongs you in your love. 5 

Children, presuming on their parents kindnesse, 
Care not what unkind actions they commit 
Against their quiet : and were I as you, 
I would affright my sonne from these bold parts. 
And father him as I found his deserts. 10 

Alp. I sweare I will : and can I prove he 
aymes 
At any interruption in my love, 
He interrupt his life. 

Med. We soone shall see, 

For I have made Madam Corteza search 
With pick-locks all the ladies cabynets 15 

About Earle Lassos house ; and if there be 
Traffique of love twixt any one of them 
And your suspected sonne t'will soone appeare 
In some signe of their amorous marchandise ; 
See where she comes, loded with jems & papers. 20 



Scene IV.] tE^t ^nttlemait Wial^tx 241 

Enter Cort\_eza], 
Corteza. See here, my lord, I have rob'd all 
their caskets ; 
Know you this ring ? this carquanet ? this 

chaine ? 
Will any of these letters serve your turne ? 
Jlp. I know not these things; but come, let 
me reade 
Some of these letters. 

[^MetJ.'] Madam, in this deed 25 

You deserve highly of my lord the Duke. 

Cor. Nay, my lord Medice, I thinke I told 
you 
I could do prettie well in these affaires : 
O these yong girles engrosse up all the love 
From us, (poore beldams !) but, I hold my 

hand, 30 

He ferret all the cunni-holes of their kindnesse 
Ere I have done with them. 

JIp, Passion of death ! 

See, see. Lord Medice, my trait'rous sonne 
Hath long joyde in the favours of my love : 
Woe to the wombe that bore him, and my care 35 
To bring him up to this accursed houre, 
In which all cares possesse my wretched life ! 
Afed. What father would beleeve he had a 
Sonne 

25 Med. Qq and S, Lass. See Notes, p. 292. 



242 W\)t (3mtltmm Wi&\)tt [act iv. 

So full of trecherie to his innocent state ? 

And yet, my lord, this letter shewes no meeting, 4° 

But a desire to meete. 

Cor. Yes, yes, my lord, 

I doe suspect they meete; and I beleeve 
I know well where too ; I beleeve I doe ; 
And therefore tell me, does no creature know 
That you have left the chase thus suddenly 45 

And are come hither? Have you not beene 

seene 
By any of these lovers ? 

J/p. Not by any. 

Cor. Come then, come follow me ; I am per- 

swaded 
I shall go neare to shew you their kind hands. 
Their confidence that you are still a hunting 5° 
Will make your amorous sonne, that stole from 

thence. 
Bold in his love-sports ; come, come, a fresh 

chace ! 
I hold this pickelocke, you shall hunt at view. 
What, do they thinke to scape ! An old wives 

eye 
Is a blew cristall full of sorcerie. 55 

J/p. If this be true, the traitorous boy shall 

die. Exeunt [omnei]. 

49 hands ^ so Qq. Query, hants. 



Scene IV] ^^t ^^mtUtttan WiSi\)tt 243 

Enter Lasso, Margaret, Bassiolo going before. 

Lasso. Tell me, I pray you, what strange 
hopes they are 
That feed your coy conceits against the Duke, 
And are prefer'd before the assured greatnes 
His Highnesse graciously would make your for- 
tunes. 60 

Margaret. I have small hopes, my lord ; but 
a desire 
To make my nuptiall choice of one I love. 
And as I would be loath t' impaire my state. 
So I affect not honours that exceed it. 

Las. O you are verie temp'rate in your choice, 65 
Pleading a judgement past your sexe and yeares. 
But I beleeve some fancie will be found 
The forge of these gay gloses : if it be, 
I shall descipher what close traitor tis 
That is your agent in your secret plots — 70 

Bassiolo \aside\ Swoones ! 

Las, And him for whom you plot j and on you all 
I will revenge thy disobedience 
With such severe correction as shall fright 
All such deluders from the like attempts : 75 

But chiefly he shall smart that is your factor. 

Bas. \aside'\. O me accurst! 

Las. Meane time He cut 

Your poore craft short, yfaith. 

Mar. Poore craft, indeede. 

That I, or any others, use for me. 



244 tClje i^mtltmm Wi&^tt [act iv. 

Las. Well, dame, if it be nothing but the jarre 80 
Of your unfitted fancie that procures 
Your wilfull coynesse to my lord the Duke, 
No doubt but time and judgement will con- 
forme it 
To such obedience as so great desert 
Proposde to your acceptance doth require. 85 

To which end doe you counsaile her, Bassiolo. 
And let me see, maid, gainst the Duks returne, 
Another tincture set upon your lookes 
Then heretofore ; for be assur'd at last 
Thou shalt consent, or else incurre my curse : 9° 
Advise her you, Bassiolo. Exit [Lasso]. 

Bas. I, my good lord ; 

\^Aside.'\ Gods pittie, what an errant asse was I 
To entertaine the Princes craftie friendship ! 
Slood, I halfe suspect the villaine guld me. 

Mar. Our squire, I thinke, is startl'd. 

Bas. Nay, ladie, it is true, 95 

And you must frame your fancie to the Duke, 
For I protest I will not be corrupted. 
For all the friends and fortunes in the world, 
To gull my lord that trusts me. 

Mar. O sir, now, 

Y'are true too late. 

Bas. No, ladie, not a whit j 100 

Slood, and you thinke to make an asse of me, 
May chance to rise betimes ; I know 't, I know. 



Scene IV] ^}^t ^f Ittlettian WiSi^^tt 245 

Afar. Out, servile coward ! Shall a light sus- 
pect, 
That hath no slendrest proofe of what we do. 
Infringe the weightie faith that thou hast sworne 105 
To thy deare friend the Prince, that dotes on thee, 
And will in peeces cut thee for thy falshood ? 

Bas. I care not ; He not hazard my estate 
For any prince on earth : and He disclose 
The complot to your father, if you yeeld not no 
To his obedience. 

Mar. Doe, if thou dar'st. 

Even for thy scrapt up living and thy life ! 
He tell my father, then, how thou didst wooe me 
To love the yong Prince, and didst force me, too, 
To take his letters ; I was well enclin'd, "5 

I will be sworne, before, to love the Duke, 
But thy vile railing at him made me hate him. 

Bas. I raile at him ? 

Mar. I, marie, did you, sir; 

And said he was a patterne for a potter. 
Fit t* have his picture stampt on a stone jugge, 120 
To keepe ale-knights in memorie of sobriety. 

Bas. [aside^. Sh'as a plaguie memory ! 

Mar. I could have lov'd him else ; nay, I did 
love him. 
Though I dissembled it, to bring him on. 
And I by this time might have beene a Dutch- 

esse ; 125 



246 ^i)t &mtltmm metier [act iv. 

And now I thinke on 't better, for revenge 
He have the Duke, and he shall have thy head 
For thy false wit within it to his love. 
Now goe and tell my father, pray be gone. 

Bas. Why, and I will goe. 130 

Afar. Goe, for Gods sake goe ; are you heere 

yet ? 
Bas. Well, now I am resolv'd. \_Gomg.'] 

Mar. Tis bravely done, farewell : but do you 
heare, sir ? 
Take this with you besides : the young Prince 

keepes 
A certaine letter you had writ for me, 135 

(" Endearing," and " Condoling," and " Ma- 
ture") 
And if you should denie things, that, I hope. 
Will stop your impudent mouth : but goe your 

waies. 
If you can answer all this, why tis well. 

Bas. Well, lady, if you will assure me heere 140 
You will refraine to meete with the young 

Prince, 
I will say nothing. 

Mar. Good sir, say your worst. 

For I will meete him, and that presently. 

Bas. Then be content, I pray, and leave me 
out, 
And meete heereafter as you can your selves. 145 



Scene iv] tBl^t ^mtletttan Mii^tt 247 

Afar. No, no, sir, no; tis you must fetch him 

to me, 
And you shal fetch him, or He do your arrand. 
Bas. [aside']. Swounds, what a spight is this ! 

I will resolve 
T' endure the worst ; tis but my foolish feare 
The plot will be discoverd. — O the gods ! 150 

Tis the best sport to play with these young 

dames ; 
I have dissembl'd, mistris, all this while; 
Have I not made you in a pretty taking ? 

Mar. O tis most good ! thus may you play 

on me; 
You cannot be content to make me love 155 

A man I hated till you spake for him 
With such inchanting speeches as no friend 
Could possibly resist ; but you must use 
Your villanous wit to drive me from my wits : 
A plague of that bewitching tongue of yours ! 160 
Would I had never heard your scurvie words. 
Bas. Pardon, deare dame. He make amends, 

i faith ; 
Thinke you that He play false with my deare 

Vince ? 
I swore that sooner Hybla should want bees. 
And Italy bone robes, then I faith ; 165 

165-166 then I faith; \ And. Emend, ed. Qq, then I; faith 
I And. S, than— i'faith, | And. 



248 tE^t (Gentleman Mii^tt iact v. 

And so they shall. 

Come, you shall meete, and double meete, in 

spight 
Of all your foes, and dukes that dare maintaine 

them, 
A plague of all old doters ! I disdaine them. 
Mar. Said like a friend ; O let me combe 
the cokscombe. 170 

[^Exeuni Margaret and Bassio/o.'] 
1 70 tAe. So Qq. Query, thy. 



Finis Actus ^arti. 



Actus Quinti Sc^na Prima. 

[ji Room, with a Gallery, in the House of Lasso,} 
Enter Alphonso, Medice, Lasso, Cortezza above. 

Corteza. Heere is the place will doe the deede, 
ifaith ; 
This, Duke, will shew thee how youth puts 

downe age, 
I, and perhaps how youth does put downe youth. 

Alphonso. If I shall see my love in any sort 
Prevented, or abusde, th' abuser dies. 5 

Lasso, I hope there is no such intent, my liege, 
For sad as death should I be to behold it. 

Medice. You must not be too confident, my 
lord. 
Or in your daughter, or in them that guard her. 
The Prince is politike, and envies his father : lo 
And though not for himselfe, nor any good 
Intended to your daughter, yet because 
He knowes t'would kill his father, he would 
seeke her. 
Cor. Whist, whist, they come. 

\They crouch in upper stage,"] 
Enter [below] Bassiolo, Vincentio, and Margaret. 
Bassiolo. Come, meete me boldly, come, 

And let them come from hunting when they dare. 15 



250 XE^i^t ^mtleman Wis>}^tt [act v. 

Vincentio. Haz the best spirit ! 
Bas. " Spirit " ? What a plague ! 

Shall a man feare capriches ? You, forsooth, 
Must have your love come t'ee, and when he 

comes, 
Then you grow shamefac'd, and he must not 

touch you : 
But " Fie, my father comes ! " and " Foe, my 

aunt ! '* ao 

t'is a wittie hearing, ist not, thinke you ? 
Vtn, Nay, pray thee doe not mocke her, 

gentle friend. 
Bas. Nay, you are even as wise a wooer too ; 
If she turne from you, you even let her turne. 
And say you doe not love to force a lady, 25 

T'is too much rudenesse. Gosh hat ! what *s 

a lady ? 
Must she not be touch'd ? What, is she copper, 

thinke you. 
And will not bide the touch-stone ? Kisse her, 

Vince, 
And thou doost love me, kisse her. 

Vin. Lady, now 

1 were too simple if I should not offer. 30 

[He kisses ber.] 
Margaret. O God, sir, pray, away ; this man 

talks idlely. 
Bas. How shay by that ? Now by that candle 

there, 



Scene I] tETtje ^eutlettian WiiS^tt 251 

Were I as Vince is, I would handle you 
In ruftie tuftie wise, in your right kinde. 

JUar. [asidi^ . O, you have made him a 

sweete beagle ; ha'y not ? 35 

Fin. [aside']. T'is the most true beleever in 
himselfe 
Of all that sect of follie ; faith 's his fault. 
Bas. So, to her, Vince ! I give thee leave, 
my lad. 
" Sweete were the words my mistris spake. 
When teares fell from her eyes." 4° 

He lies down by them. 
Thus, as the lyon lies before his den. 
Guarding his whelps, and streakes his carelesse 

Hmbs, 
And when the panther, foxe, or wolfe comes 

neere. 
He never daines to rise to fright them hence. 
But onely puts forth one of his sterne pawes, 45 
And keepes his deare whelps safe, as in a hutch, 
So I present his person, and keepe mine. 
Foxes, goe by ; I put my terror forth. 

Cant\ai\. 
Let all the world say what they can. 

Her bargaine best she makes, 5° 

That hath the wit to choose a man. 
To pay for that he takes. 

Belle Piu, ^c. Iterum cant[at]. 

39-40 Siveete . . . eyes. One line in Qq. 



252 tETije Gentleman WiSf\)tt [act v. 

Dispatch, sweete whelps, the bug, the Duke, 

comes strait : 
O tis a grave old lover, that same Duke, 
And chooses minions rarely, if you marke him, 55 
The noble Medice, that man, that Bobbadilla, 
That foolish knave, that hose and dublet stinck- 
ard! 
A^fed. Swounds, my lord, rise, lets indure no 

more. 
Jip. A little, pray, my lord, for I beleeve 
We shall discover very notable knavery. 60 

Las. Alas, how I am greev'd and sham'd in this ! 
Cor. Never care you, lord brother, theres no 

harme done. 
Bas. But that sweet creature, my good lords 
sister, 
Madam Cortezza, she, the noblest dame 
That ever any veine of honour bled, 65 

There were a wife, now, for my Lord the Duke, 
Had he the grace to choose her ; but, indeede. 
To speake her true praise I must use some study. 

Cor. Now truly, brother, I did ever thinke 
This man the honestest man that ere you kept. 70 
Las. So, sister, so, because he praises you. 
Cor. Nay, sir, but you shall heare him further 

yet. 
Bas. Were not her head sometimes a little 
light. 



Scene I.] ®|)e ^entUtttan M^\)tt 253 

And so, unapt for matter of much weight, 
She were the fittest and the worthiest dame 75 

To leape a window, and to breake her necke, 
That ever was. 

Cor. Gods pitty, arrant knave ! 

I ever thought him a dissembling varlot. 

Bas. Well, now, my hearts, be warie, for by 
this 
I feare the Duke is comming ; He go watch, 80 
And give you warning : I commend me t'ee. 

E;(ii \_Bassio/o], 
Fin. O fine phrase ! 

JUar. And very timely usde ! 

Fin. What now, sweete life, shall we resolve 
upon ? 
We never shall injoy each other heere. 

Afar. Direct you then, my lord, what we shall 
doe, 85 

For I am at your will, and will indure 
With you the cruellst absence from the state 
We both were borne too that can be supposde. 
Fin. That would extreamely greeve me; could 
my selfe 
Onely indure the ill our hardest fates 90 

May lay on both of us, I would not care ; 
But to behold thy sufferance I should die. 
Mar. How can your lordship wrong my love 
so much 



254 tCtie ^entlnnan tm^^ei: [act v. 

To thinke the more woe I sustaine for you 
Breedes not the more my comfort ? I, alas, 95 
Have no meane else to make my merit even 
In any measure with your eminent worth. 
[^Re-'\ enter Bassiolo. 
Bas. [aside'] . Now must I exercise my tim- 
orous lovers, 
Like fresh arm'd souldiers, with some false 

alarms. 
To make them yare and warie of their foe, 100 
The boistrous bearded Duke : He rush upon 

them 
With a most hideous cry. 

— The Duke ! the Duke ! the Duke ! 
\_Fincentio and Margaret run out,] 
Ha, ha, ha, wo ho, come againe, I say ; 
The Duke *s not come, ifaith. 

[Re-enter Vincent io and Margaret.] 
Vin. Gods precious, man ! 

What did you meane to put us in this feare ? 105 
Bas. O sir, to make you looke about the 
more ; 
Nay, we must teach you more of this, I tell you : 
What, can you be too safe, sir ? What, I say. 
Must you be pamperd in your vanities ? 
[Jside.] Ah, 1 do domineere and rule the rost. no 

Exit [Bassiolo]. 



Scene I.] ®^)e ^mtlnitan Wi^\)tt 255 

Afar. Was ever such an ingle ? Would to 
God, 
(If twere not for our selves) my father saw him. 
Las. Minion, you have your praier, and my 
curse. 
For your good huswiferie. 

Med. What saies your Highnesse ? 

Can you indure these injuries any more ? 115 

J/p. No more, no more ; advise me what is 
best 
To be the penance of my gracelesse sonne. 
Jkfed. My lord, no meane but death or banish- 
ment 
Can be fit penance for him, if you meane 
T'injoy the pleasure of your love your selfe. i^o 
Cor. Give him plaine death, my lord, and 

then y'are sure. 
J/p. Death, or his banishment, he shall indure 
For wreake of that joyes exile I sustaine. 
Come, call our gard, and apprehend him strait. 
Exeunt [AlphonsOy Medice, Lasso, and Cortexa~\ . 
Vin. I have some Jewells, then, my dearest 
life, 125 

Which, with what ever we can get beside. 
Shall be our meanes, and we will make escape. 
Enter Bassiolo running. 
Bas. Sblood, the Duke and all come now in 
earnest ; 



256 tETlie Gentleman tlUfiil^er [act v. 

The Duke, by heaven, the Duke ! 

Vin. Nay, then, ifaith, 

Your jeast is too too stale. 

Bas. Gods pretious, 13° 

By these ten bones, and by this hat and heart. 
The Duke and all comes ! See, we are cast 
away ! Exeunt ^Bassiolo and Vincentio\ . 
Enter Alphonsoy Medice, Lasso y \who seizes Margaret^ 
Cortexzay and Julio, 
Alp, Lay hands upon them all, pursue, pur- 
sue ! 
Las, Stay, thou ungracious girle ! 
Alp. Lord Medice, 

Leade you our guard, and see you apprehend »35 
The treacherous boy, nor let him scape with life 
Unlesse he yeelde to his [eternall] exile. 
Med, T'is princely said, my lord. 

Exit \Medice'\, 
Las, And take my usher ! 

Mar. Let me goe into exile with my lord ; 
I will not live, if I be left behinde. 140 

Las. Impudent damzell, wouldst thou follow 

him ? 
Mar. He is my husband, whom else should I 

follow ? 
Las, Wretch, thou speakest treason to my 
lord the Duke. 

137 eternall. Emend S. Qq, external, probably influenced by 
the following word, exUe. 



Scene I] ^\)t ^mtleutan msfljer 257 

Jip. Yet love me, lady, and I pardon all. 

Mar. I have a husband, and must love none 
else. 145 

j^Ip. Dispightfull dame. He dis-inherit him. 
And thy good father heere shall cast off thee. 
And both shall feede on ayre, or starve and die. 

Mar. If this be justice, let it be our doomes : 
If free and spotlesse love in equall yeares, 150 

With honours unimpaired, deserve such ends, 
Let us approve what justice is in friends. 

Las. You shall, I sweare ; sister, take you her 
close 
Into your chamber, locke her fast alone. 
And let her stirre, nor speake with any one. 155 

Cor. She shall not, brother : come, neece, come 
with me. 

Mar. Heaven save my love, and I will suffer 
gladly. Exeunt Cor\_texa and"] Mar\_garet\. 

Jlp. Haste, Julio, follow thou my sons pursuit, 
And will Lord Medice not to hurt nor touch him. 
But either banish him, or bring him backe : 160 
Charge him to use no violence to his life. 

Julio. I will, my lord. Exit Julio. 

Jlp. O Nature ! how, alas. 

Art thou and Reason, thy true guide, opposde ! 
More bane thou tak'st to guide Sense, led amisse. 
Then, being guided. Reason gives thee blisse. 165 
Exeunt \_Alphonso and Lasso'\ . 



258 tE^\)t (3mtitntm metier [act v. 

[Sc^NA SeCUNDA. 

J Room in the House of Strozza."] 

Enter Cynanche, Beneveniusy Ancillay Strozza having 
the arrow head \in his hand'\ . 

Strozza. Now see, good Doctor, t'was no 

frantike fancie 
That made my tongue presage this head should 

fall 
Out of my wounded side the seventh day ; 
But an inspired rapture of my minde. 
Submitted and conjoynde in patience 
To my Creator, in whom I fore-saw 
(Like to an angell) this divine event. 

Benivemus. So is it plaine, and happily ap- 

prov'd 
In a right Christian president, confirming 
What a most sacred medcine patience is. 
That with the high thirst of our soules cleare fire 
Exhausts corporeall humour, and all paine, 
Casting our flesh off, while we it retaine. 

Cynanche. Make some religious vow then, my 

deare lord. 
And keepe it in the proper memorie 
Of so celestiall and free a grace. 

Stro. Sweete wife, thou restest my good angell 

still. 



Scene II.] ^\)t (^mtltmm WiSi^tt 259 

Suggesting by all meanes these ghostly coun- 

salles. 
Thou weariest not thy husbands patient eares 
With motions for new fashions in attire, ao 

For change of Jewells, pastimes, and nice cates. 
Nor studiest eminence, and the higher place 
Amongst thy consorts, like all other dames ; 
But knowing more worthy objects appertaine 
To every woman that desires t' injoy 25 

A blessed life in manage, thou contemn'st 
Those common pleasures, and pursu'st the rare. 
Using thy husband in those vertuous gifts 
For which thou first didst choose him, and thereby 
Cloy'st not with him, but lov'st him endlesly. 30 
In reverence of thy motion, then, and zeale 
To that most soveraigne power that was my 

cure, 
I make a vowe to goe on foote to Rome, 
And offer humbly in S[aint] Peters Temple 
This fatall arrow head : which work let none 

judge 35 

A superstitious rite, but a right use. 
Proper to this peculiar instrument. 
Which, visiblie resignde to memorie. 
Through every eye that sees will stirre the 

soule 
To gratitude and progresse, in the use 40 

34 Saint Peters. Emend, ed. Qq, S. Peters 



26o ^\)t Gentleman U^f)tt [act v. 

Of my tried patience, which, in my powers end- 
ing. 

Would shut th' example out of future lives. 

No act is superstitious that applies 

All power to God, devoting hearts through eyes. 
Ben. Spoke with the true tongue of a noble- 
man : 45 

But now are all these excitations toyes. 

And Honor fats his braine with other joyes. 

I know your true friend, Prince Vincentio, 

Will triumph in this excellent effect 

Of your late prophecie. 

Stro. O, my deare friends name 50 

Presents my thoughts with a most mortall danger 

To his right innocent life : a monstrous fact 

Is now effected on him. 

Cyn. Where ? or how ? 

Stro. I doe not well those circumstances know, 

But am assur'd the substance is too true. 55 

Come, reverend Doctor, let us hearken out 

Where the young Prince remaines, and beare 
with you 

Medcines t' allay his danger ; if by wounds, 

Beare pretious balsome, or some soveraigne 
juyce ; 

If by fell poison, some choice antidote ; 60 

If by blacke witchcraft, our good spirits and 
prayers 



Scene II] XE^i)t (QmtltmUn WifS\)tt 26 1 

Shall exorcise the divelish wrath of hell 
Out of his princely bosome. 

EnUr Pogio running, 

Pogio. Where ? where ? where ? 

Where 's my lord uncle, my lord my uncle ? 

Stro. Here 's the ill tydings-bringer ; what 
newes now 6^ 

With thy unhappie presence ? 

Pog. O my lord, my lord Vincentio 

Is almost kild by my lord Medice. 

Stro. See, Doctor, see, if my presage be true ! 
And well I know if he have hurt the Prince, 
T'is trecherously done, or with much helpe. ^q 

Pog. Nay, sure, he had no helpe but all the 
Dukes guard ; and they set upon him indeed ; 
and after he had defended himselfe, dee see ? he 
drew, & having as good as wounded the lord 
Medice almost, he strake at him, and missd 75 
him, dee marke ? 

Stro. What tale is here ? Where is this mis- 
chiefe done ? 

Pog. At Monks-well, my lord ; He guide you 
to him presently. 

Stro. I doubt it not; fooles are best guides to ill, go 
And Mischiefes readie way lies open still. 
Lead, sir, I pray. Exeunt [omnei]. 

63-64 Where . . . my uncle, Qq print this speech by Fogio 
as two lines of prose. 

66-67 my . . . Medice. Qq print as one line of prose. 



262 XBl^t Gentleman tlU^l^er [act v. 

[Sc^NA TeRTIA. 

Corteza^s Chamber y a Tower-room in Lasso'* s House."] 

Enter Corteza and Margaret above. 

Corteza. Quiet your selfe, nece ; though your 
love be slaine, 
You have another that 's woorth two of him. 
Margaret. It is not possible ; it cannot be 
That heaven should suffer such impietie. 
Cor. T'is true, I sweare, neece. 
Mar. O most' unjust truth ! 

He cast my selfe downe headlong from this 

tower, 
And force an instant passage for my soule. 
To seeke the wandring spirit of my lord. 

Cor. Will you do so, neece ? That I hope you 
will not ; 
And yet there was a maid in Saint Marks 

streete 
For such a matter did so, and her clothes 
Flew up about her so as she had no harme : 
And grace of God, your clothes may flie up too. 
And save you harmelesse ; for your cause and 

hers 
Are ene as like as can be. 

Mar. I would not scape; 

And certainly I thinke the death is easie. 



Scene III] tET^e ^mtletttan tia^^ier 263 

Cor. O t'is the easiest death that ever was ; 
Looke, neece, it is so farre hence to the ground. 
You shoulde bee quite dead long before you 

felt it. 
Yet do not leape, neece. 

Mar. I will kill my selfe ^o 

With running on some sworde, or drinke strong 

poison ; 
Which death is easiest I would faine endure. 

Cor. Sure Cleopatra was of the same minde, 
And did so ; she was honord ever since : 
Yet do not you so, neece. 25 

Mar. Wretch that I am, my heart is softe 
and faint. 
And trembles at the verie thought of death, 
Though thoughts ten-folde more greevous do 

torment it ; 
He feele death by degrees, and first deforme 
This my accursed face with uglie wounds, 3° 

That was the first cause of my deare loves death. 
Cor. That were a cruell deed; yet Adelasia, 
In Pettis Pallace of Petit Pleasure.^ 
For all the worlde with such a knife as this 
Cut off her cheeks and nose, and was com- 
mended 35 
More then all dames that kept their faces whole. 
\Margaret seizes the knife and offers to cut 
her face, '\ 
O do not cut it. 



264 tETtje Gentleman tUlsfljer [act v. 

Mar. Fie on my faint heart ! 

It will not give my hand the wished strength ; 
Beholde the just plague of a sensuall life, 
That, to preserve it selfe in Reasons spight 40 

And shunne Deaths horror, feels it ten times 

more. 
Unworthy women ! Why doe men adore 
Our fading beauties, when, their worthiest lives 
Being lost for us, we dare not die for them ? 
Hence haplesse ornaments that adorn'd this head, 45 
Disorder ever these [enticing curies] 
And leave my beautie like a wildernesse. 
That never mans eie more may dare t' invade. 

Cor. He tell you, neece, — and yet I will not 
tell you 
A thing that I desire to have you doe — 50 

But I will tell you onely what you might doe. 
Cause I would pleasure you in all I cud. 
I have an ointment heere which we dames use 
To take off haire when it does growe too lowe 
Upon our foreheads, and that, for a neede, 55 

If you should rub it hard upon your face. 
Would blister it, and make it looke most vildely. 

Mar. O give me that, aunt. 

Cor. Give it you, virgin ? That were well in- 
deede : 
Shall I be thought to tempt you to such matters 1 60 

46 enticing curies. Emend. S. Qq, entring carles. 



Scene III] tETtje (Sentlntian tastier 265 

Mar, None (of my faith) shall know it : gen- 
tle aunt, 
Bestow it on me, and He ever love you. 

Cor. Gods pitty, but you shall not spoile your 

face. 
Mar. I will not then, indeede. 
Cor. Why then, neece, take it : 

But you shall sweare you will not. 

Mar. No, I sweare. 65 

\She seizes the box and rubs her face with 
the ointment. 'Y 
Cor. What, doe you force it from me ? Gods 
my deare ! 
Will you mis-use your face so ? What, all 

over ? 
Nay, if you be so desp'rate. He be gone. 

Exit \_Corteza']. 
Mar. Fade, haplesse beauty, turne the ugliest 
face 
Th[at] ever iEthiop, or afFrightfuU fiend, 7° 

Shew'd in th' amaz [e] d eye of prophan'd light : 
See, pretious love, if thou be [yet] in ayre. 
And canst breake darknesse and the strongest 

towres 
With thy dissolved intellectuall powres, 

70 That. Emend. S. Qq, The. 

71 amazed. Emend. S. Qq, amaz'd. 

72 yet. Emend, ed. Qq, it. 



266 gptie Gentleman tE^ljer [act v. 

See a worse torment suffered for thy death 75 

Then if it had extended his blacke force 

In seven-fold horror to my hated life. 

Smart, pretious ointment, smart, and to my 

braine 
Sweate thy envenom'd furie, make my eyes 
Burne with thy sulphre like the lakes of hell, 80 
That feare of me may shiver him to dust 
That eate his owne childe with the jawes of 

lust. \^Exit Margaret.'] 

[SC^NA QUARTA. 
ji Room in Lasso* 5 House. ~\ 
Enter AlphonsOy LassOy and others. 

Alphonso. I wonder how farre they pursued my 
Sonne, 
That no returne of him or them appears ; 
I feare some haplesse accident is chanc'd 
That makes the newes so loath to pierce mine 
eares. 
Lasso. High Heaven vouchsafe no such effect 
succeede 5 

Those wretched causes that from my house flow. 
But that in harmelesse love all acts may end. 
Enter Cortezza. 
Corteza. What shall I do ? Alas, I cannot rule 

Exit Margaret. Qq, Exeunt. 



Scene iv] xj^^t (Qmtltm^n Wiii\)tt 267 

My desparate neece ; all her sweete face is 

spoylde, 
And I dare keepe her prisoner no more : 10 

See, see, she comes, frantike and all undrest. 
£/iUr Marg \_aref\ . 
Margaret. Tyrant ! behold how thou hast usde 

thy love; 
See, theefe to Nature, thou hast kil'd and rob'd, 
Kird what my selfe kill'd, rob'd what makes 

thee poore. 
Beautie (a lovers treasure) thou hast lost 15 

Where none can find it; all a poore maides 

dowre 
Thou hast forc'd from me, all my joy and hope. 
No man will love me more ; all dames excell me : 
This ougly thing is now no more a face 
Nor any vile forme in all earth resembled, 20 

But thy fowle tyrannie ; for which all the paines 
Two faithfuU lovers feele, that thus are parted. 
All joyes they might have felt, turne all to 

paines ; 
All a yong virgin thinks she does endure 
To loose her love and beautie, on thy heart 25 

Be heapt and prest downe till thy soule depart. . 
Enter Julio. 
Julio. Haste, Liege ! your sonne is daunger- 

ously hurt. 

20 resembled, so gq, S, resembles. 



268 tB\)t Gentleman Wi^\)tt [act v. 

Lord Medice, contemning your commaund, 
By me delivered, as your Highnesse will'd, 
Set on him with your guard, who strooke him 

downe ; 3^ 

And then the coward lord with mortall wounds 
And slavish insolencie plow'd up his soft breast ; 
Which barbarous fact, in part, is laid on you, 
For first enjoyning it, and fowle exclaimes 
In pittie of your sonne your subjects breathe 35 
Gainst your unnaturall furie ; amongst whom 
The good Lord Strozza desp'rately raves. 
And vengeance for his friends injustice craves. 
See where he comes, burning in zeale of friend- 
ship. 

E/iter Strozza, Fincentio, brought in a chaire, Bene- 
veniuSy Pogio, Cynanche, with a guard, ^ Medice. 
Strozza. Where is the tyrant ? Let me strike 
his eyes 4© 

Into his braine with horror of an object. 

See, pagan Nero, see how thou hast ript 

Thy better bosome, rooted up that flowre 

From whence thy now spent life should spring 
anew. 

And in him kild (that would have bred thee fresh) 45 

Thy mother and thy father. 

Vincentio. Good friend, cease. 

guard . . . &. Between these words gq insert '* Strozza 
before. ' ' 



Scene IV.] ®t)e ^eutUttian Wi&\)tt 269 

Stro. What hag, with child of monster, would 
have nurst 
Such a prodigious longing ? But a father 
Would rather eate the brawne out of his armes 
Then glut the mad worme of his wilde desires 50 
With his deare issues entrailes. 

Fin. Honourd friend, 

He is my father, and he is my prince. 
In both whose rights he may commaund my life. 
Stro. What is a father ? Turne his entrailes 
gulfs 
To swallow children when they have begot them ? 55 
And whats a prince ? Had all beene vertuous 

men. 
There never had beene prince upon the earth, 
And so no subject ; all men had beene princes : 
A vertuous man is subject to no prince. 
But to his soule and honour, which are lawes 60 
That Carrie fire and sword within themselves. 
Never corrupted, never out of rule ; 
What is there in a prince that his least lusts 
Are valued at the lives of other men ? 
When common faults in him should prodigies 

be, 65 

And his grosse dotage rather loathM then soothM. 
JIp. How thicke and heavily my plagues de- 
scend, 
Not giving my mazde powres a time to speake ! 



2 70 tETlje Gentleman t[a0l)rr [act v. 

Poure more rebuke upon me, worthie lord, 

For I have guilt and patience for them all : 70 

Yet know, deare sonne, I did forbid thy harme ; 

This gentleman can witnes, whom I sent 

With all command of haste to interdict 

This forward man in mischiefe not to touch 

thee : 
Did I not, Julio ? Utter nought but truth. 75 

'Jul. All your guard heard, my lord, I gave 
your charge 
With lowd and violent itterations. 
After all which Lord Medice cowardly hurt him. 

The Guard. He did, my princely Lord. 

Alp. Beleeve then, sonne. 

And know me pierst as deeply with thy wounds : 80 
And pardon, vertuous lady, that have lost 
The dearest treasure proper to your sexe. 
Ay me, it seemes, by my unhappie meanes ! 
O would to God I could with present cure 
Of these unnaturall wounds, and moning right 85 
Of this abused beautie, joyne you both, 
(As last I left you) in eternall nuptials. 

Vin. My lord, I know the malice of this man. 
Not your unkinde consent, hath usde us thus. 
And since I make no doubt I shall survive 9° 

These fatall dangers, and your Grace is pleasde 

85 moning right y so Qq. Mr. P. A. Daniel suggests " moving 
sight. ' ' 



Scene iv] ®t|e ^eutletttatt Wi&\)tt 271 

To give free course to my unwounded love, 

T'is not this outward beauties ruthfull losse 

Can any thought discourage my desires : 

And therefore, deare life, doe not wrong me so 95 

To thinke my love the shadow of your beautie ; 

I wooe your vertues, which as I am sure 

No accident can alter or empaire, 

So, be you certaine, nought can change my love. 

Afar. I know your honourable minde, my lord, 100 
And will not do it that unworthie wrong 
To let it spend her forces in contending 
(Spite of your sence) to love me thus deformed : 
Love must have outward objects to delight him, 
Else his content will be too grave and sowre. 105 
It is inough for me, my lord, you love. 
And that my beauties sacrifice redeemde 
My sad feare of your slaughter. You first lov'd 

me 
Closely for beautie, which being withered thus. 
Your love must fade : when the most needfull 

rights no 

Of Fate and Nature have dissolv'd your life. 
And that your love must needs be all in soule. 
Then will we meete againe ; and then (deare love) 
Love me againe ; for then will beautie be 
Of no respect with Loves eternitie. 115 

Fin. Nor is it now : I wooed your beautie 
first 



272 XE^^t Gentleman Msi^tt [act v. 

But as a lover : now, as a deare husband, 
That title and your vertues binde me ever. 

Mar. Alas ! that title is of little force 
To stirre up mens affections ; when wives want 120 
Outward excitements, husbands loves grow skant. 

Benivemus. Assist me. Heaven ; and Art, give 
me your maske ; 
Open thou little store-house of great Nature, 
Use an Elixar drawne through seven yeares fire, 
That like Medeas cauldron can repaire 125 

The ugliest losse of living temp'rature ; 
And for this princely paire of vertuous turtles 
Be lavish of thy pretious influence. 
Lady, t* attone your honourable strife. 
And take all let from your loves tender eyes, 130 
Let me for ever hide this staine of beauty 
With this recureful maske. 

[Putting a mask on Margaret* s face. '\ 
Heere be it fixM 
With painelesse operation ; of it selfe, 
(Your beauty having brook'd three dales eclips) 
Like a dissolved clowd it shall fall off, 13s 

And your faire lookes regaine their freshest raies : 
So shall your princely friend, (if heaven consent) 
In twice your sufferd date renue recure ; 
Let me then have the honor to conjoyne 
Your hands conformed to your constant hearts. 140 

122 Heaven i and Arty give me. Query, Heaven and Art! 
Give me. See Notes, p. 295. 



Scene iv] Qpj^e ^entlemait tiE0tier 273 

Jlp. Grave Benevenius, honorable Doctor, 
On whose most soveraigne i^sculapian hand 
Fame with her richest miracles attends, 
Be fortunate, as ever heeretofore, 
That we may quite thee both with gold and 

honour, 145 

And, by thy happy meanes, have powre to make 
My Sonne and his much injur'd love amends; 
Whose well proportioned choice we now ap- 
plaud. 
And blesse all those that ever further'd it. 
Where is your discreete usher, my good lord, 150 
The speciall furtherer of this equall match ? 

yul. Brought after by a couple of your guard. 

Alp. Let him be fetch'd, that we may doe 
him grace. 

Pogio. He fetch him, my lord ; \detaintng Ju- 
lio.~\ away, you must not go : O here he comes! '55 

[^Enter Bassiolo guarded^ 
O Master Usher, I am sorie for you, you must 
presently be chopt in peeces. 

Bassiolo. Wo to that wicked Prince that ere 
I saw him ! 

Pog. Come, come, I gull you. Master Usher ; 
you are like to be the Dukes minion, man ; dee 160 
thinke I would have beene seene in your com- 
panie, and you had beene out of favour ? Here 's 
my friend Maister Usher, my lord. 



2 74 ^^t Gentleman Wi&^tt [act v. 

J/p. Give me your hand, friend; pardon us, 
I pray ; 
We much have wrong'd your worth, as one that 

knew^ 165 

The fitnesse of this match above our selves. 
Bas. Sir, 1 did all things for the best, I 
sweare ; 
And you must thinke I would not have beene 

gul'd ; 
I know what 's fit, sir, as I hope you know now : 
Sweete Vmce, how far'st thou ? Be of honourd 

cheere. 170 

Las. " Vince " does he call him ? O foole, 
dost thou call 
The Prince, Vince, like his equall ? 

Bas. O my lord, ahlas ! 

You know not what haz past twixt us two ; 
Here in thy bosome I will lie, sweete Vince, 
And die if thou die, I protest by Heaven. 175 

Las. I know not what this meanes. 
JIp. Nor I, my lord ; 

But sure he saw the fitnes of the match 
With freer and more noble eies then we. 

Pog. Why I saw that as well as he, my lord ; 
I knew t'was a foolish match betwixt you two; 180 
did you not thinke so, my Lord Vincentio ? Lord 

165-166 We . . . sei-ves. Q prints this as prose. 
173 past. Query, passed. S, pass'd betwixt. 



Scene IV.] tl^\)t ^etttleman Wiii\)tt 275 

uncle, did I not say at first of the Duke : "Will 
his antiquitie never leave his iniquitie " ? 

Stro. Go to, too much of this ; but aske this 
lord. 
If he did like it. 

Pog. Who, my Lord Medice ? 185 

Stro. Lord Stinkard, man, his name is ; aske 
him : " Lord Stinkard, did you like the match ? " 
Say. 

Pog. My lord Stinkard, did you like the match 
betwixt the Duke and my ladie Margaret ? 190 

Medice. Presumptuous sicophant, I will have 
thy life. {^He draws on Pogio.'\ 

Alp. Unworthie lord, put up : thirst'st thou 
more blood ? 
Thy life is fitt'st to be call'd in question 
For thy most murthrous cowardise on my 

Sonne ; 
Thy forwardnesse to every cruelty 195 

Calls thy pretended noblesse in suspect. 

Stro. " Noblesse," my lord ? Set by your 
princely favour 
That gave the lustre to his painted state, 
Who ever viewM him but with deepe contempt. 
As reading vilenesse in his very lookes ? 200 

And if he prove not sonne of some base drudge, 
Trim'd up by Fortune, being dispos'd to jeast 

193 fitiit. So Qq. Query, fittest. 



2/6 t^tie ^mtleman ta^l^er [act v. 

And dally with your state, then that good angell 
That by divine relation spake in me, 
Fore-telling these foule dangers to your sonne, 205 
And without notice brought this reverend man 
To rescue him from death, now failes my tongue, 
And He confesse I doe him open wrong. 

Med. And so thou doost ; and I returne all 
note 
Of infamy or basenesse on thy throte : 210 

Damne me, my lord, if I be not a lord. 

Stro, My Liege, with all desert even now you 
said 
His life was duely forfet for the death 
Which in these barbarous wounds he sought 

your Sonne ; 
Vouchsafe me then his life, in my friends right, 215 
For many waies I know he merits death ; 
Which (if you grant) will instantly appeare, 
And that, I feele, with some rare miracle. 

Alp, His life is thine. Lord Strozza ; give him 
death. 

Med. What, my lord, 220 

Will your Grace cast away an innocent life? 

Stro. Villaine, thou liest, thou guiltie art of 
death 
A hundred waies, which now He execute. 

Med. Recall your word, my lord. 

Alp. Not for the world. 



Scene iv] tE\)t ^entlettiait m0l)cr 277 

Stro. O my deare Liege, but that my spirit 
prophetike 225 

Hath inward feeling if such sinnes in him, 
As aske the forfait of his life and soule, 
I would, before I tooke his life, give leave 
To his confession and his penitence : 
O, he would tell you most notorious wonders 230 
Of his most impious state ; but life and soule 
Must suffer for it in him, and my hand 
Forbidden is from heaven to let him live 
Till by confession he may have forgivenesse. 
Die therefore, monster. 235 

Fin. O, be not so uncharitable, sweete friend. 
Let him confesse his sinnes, and aske heaven 
pardon. 

Stro. He must not, princely friend ; it is hea- 
vens justice 
To plague his life and soule, and heer 's heavens 
justice. [^^ draws.'] 

Med. O save my life, my lord. 

Las. Hold, good Lord Strozza. 240 

Let him confesse the sinnes that heaven hath 

told you. 
And aske forgivenesse. 

Med. Let me, good my lord, 

And He confesse what you accuse me of. 
Wonders, indeede, and full of damn'd deserts. 

Stro. I know it, and I must not let thee live 245 
To aske forgivenesse. 



278 tiriie Gentleman tK0l)rr [actv. 

Alp. But you shall, my lord, 

Or I will take his life out of your hand. 

Stro. A little then I am content, my Liege : 
Is thy name Medice ? 

Med. No, my noble lord. 

My true name is Mendice. 

Stro. " Mendice " ? See 250 

At first a mighty scandall done to honour. 
Of what countrie art thou ? 

Med. Of no country, I ; 

But borne upon the seas, my mother passing 
Twixt Zant and Venice. 

Stro. Where wert thou christned ? 

Med. I was never christned, 25 5 

But, being brought up with beggars, call'd Men- 
dice. 

Jlp. Strange and unspeakeable ! 

Stro. How cam'st thou then 

To beare that port thou didst, entring this court ? 

Med. My lord, when I was young, being able 
limb'd, 
A captaine of the gipsies entertained me, 260 

And many yeares I liv'd a loose life with them ; 
At last I was so favor'd that they made me 
The King of Gipsies ; and being told my for- 
tune 
By an old sorceresse, that I should be great 
In some great princes love, I tooke the treasure 265 



Scene iv] tEije ^mtUttian Ms^tt 279 

Which all our company of gipsies had 
In many yeares, by severall stealths, collected. 
And leaving them in warres, I liv'd abroad 
With no lesse shew then now : and my last 

wrong 
I did to noblesse was in this high court. 270 

JIp. Never was heard so strange a counterfet. 
Stro. Didst thou not cause me to be shot in 

hunting ? 
Afed. I did, my lord, for which, for heavens 

love, pardon. 
Stro. Now let him live, my lord; his bloods 
least drop 
Would staine your court more then the sea could 

cleanse : 275 

His soule 's too foule to expiate with death. 
JIp. Hence then ; be ever banish'd from my 
rule. 
And live a monster, loath'd of all the world. 

Pog. He get boyes and baite him out a*th 

court, my lord. 280 

JIp. Doe so, I pray thee, rid me of his sight. 

Pog. Come on, my Lord Stinckerd, He play 

" Fox, Fox, come out of thy hole," with you, 

i faith. 

Med. He runne and hide me from the sight 
of heaven. 285 



28o tlP^e amtleman tastljer [act v. 

Pog. Fox, Fox, goe out of thy hole ; a two 
leg'd fox, a two leg'd fox ! 

Exit \_Pogio\ with pages beating Medice. 
Ben, Never was such an accident disclosde. 
Alp, Let us forget it, honourable friends. 
And satisfie all wrongs with my sonnes right, 290 
In solemne mariage of his love and him. 

Vin, I humbly thanke your Highnesse : hon- 
or'd Doctor, 
The balsome you infusde into my wounds 
Hath easde me much, and given me sodaine 

strength 
Enough t' assure all danger is exempt 295 

That any way may let the generall joy 
My princely father speakes of in our nuptialls. 
Alp. Which, my deere sonne, shall with thy 
full recure 
Be celebrate in greater majesty 
Than ever grac'd our greatest ancestrie. 300 

Then take thy love, which heaven with all joyes 

blesse. 
And make yee both mirrors of happinesse. 



FINIB 



0ott0 on Ci^e (Bentlcman Ojii^et; 

146. Pogio : the clown of the play. His buffoonery is precisely 
of the same type as that of Sir Giles Goosecap in the play of that 
name, an argument so far unnoticed for Chapman's authorship of 
that play. In the evolution of English comedy Pogio is a link with 
the past, corresponding to the buffooning vice of early times. 

148, 28. brittle as a beetle : a mock proverb coined by 
Pogio. A beetle, /. <r., a paving-ram, was proverbially slow. In 
Withals' Dictionary^ 1 634, p. 555, '* Celerius Elephanti pariunt " 
is rendered ' * quick as a beetle. 

148,30. "-wehie" . . . **tihi": the feeble joke consists 
in Pogio 's misuse of the onomatopoeic words representing a human 
laugh and the neigh of a horse. A bit of doggerel gives the proper 
use: 

But when the hobby-horse did wihy, 
Then all the wenches gave a tihi. 

(Nares, Glossary, sub ** Tihi.") 

148, 31. Hysteron Proteron : a Greek term for the figure 
of speech in which the word that should come last is put first. 
Strozza gives Pogio the name because he has just put the cart before 
the horse. Cf. "heeles about my hose," i, i, 57-58. . 

148, 34- late honourd mistresse : the lady whom he has 
lately begun to honour. 

150, 66. daring . . . prey: fi-ightening the prey on which 
they swoop down. " Dare " and *' stoop " are technical terms in 
falconry. 

150, 67. hare or hinde : Chapman may have had in mind 
the advice Venus gave Adonis (^Venus and Adonis, 673-8) ; but he 
has not imitated the diction of that passage. 

150, 68. Tosst . . . harmonie: driven about as a melody 
or theme is in a fugue. The baying of the dogs is the harmony 
of the chase. Cf. Midsummer Night'' s Dream, iv, i, 110-130. 



282 iPotesf 

152, 103. who : the antecedent Is not ** choice," as it at first 
appears, but "servant" in the preceding line. 

152, 104. are to begin : are yet to begin, have not begun. 

152, 118. fustian . . . buckram: terms used to express 
Strozza's contempt for Medice whom he suspects of being an im- 
postor. Fustian and buckram are cheap stuffs. 

152, 120. parcell . . . Stuffe : Vincentio carries on the 
dry-goods figure, calling Medice a bale of goods as yet " uncon- 
strued," ;'. e., unjudged, unvalued. 

153, 128. beg . . . liverie : use his livery as a license to 
beg by, since wearing it they could not be arrested as masterless men. 
Compare the account of the shifi:s to which D' Olive's followers 
had resort. [Monsieur D' O/i-ve, iii, ii, ed. Pearson, vol. i, p. 228.) 

153, 132. noble COUnterfet : counterfeit of nobility, im- 
postor pretending to be a lord. 

154, 164. hammer. Cf. Glossary. 

154, 172. hunting . . . best : our sport is over, we have 
seen the best of it before it has begun. 

I55> ''94- care not to proclaime : do not mind pro- 
claiming. 

156, 212. Padua. See note on AI Fooles, i, i, 316. 
schoolde it : studied. 

156, 214. Curculio : literally corn-worm, a hungry parasite 
in the comedy of Plautus bearing that name. 

157, 219-220. take up . . . heels : trip up some of your 
honours. 

157, 228-230. Date viam . . . genu : a quotation from 
the Curculio of Plautus, 11, iii. 

158, 234. upon repletion : after a full meal. 

158, 235-236. ventred . . . neate: dared to eat the com- 
mons of the three scholars, i. e., the portions assigned in the com- 
mon dining-hall, and yet played this part completely in character. 
As the part is that of a hungry parasite, to play it well after a full 
meal proved Sarpego's mimetic talent. 

i59> ^53-254- what, thinke you . . . attire: with 
this speech Alphonso beckons to his servants to array Medice in a 
garb fitting the part of Sylvanus which he is to play. 

159, 258. make us ready : dress ourselves. 



^Ott& 283 

159, 262-264. To none but you . . . my lords : In the 

Quartos these speeches are wrongly assigned. Medice has Vincentio's 
and Vincentio Medice' s. There can be no reason why Vincentio and 
Strozza should quarrel, Vincentio appeal to Medice, and Medice 
play peacemaker. Such a disposition of the speeches is in fact quite 
out of keeping with the situation. I take it that Medice jostles 
Strozza who turns sharply on him with " Stand-by ; y' are trouble- 
some." Medice then appeals to the Prince, who, not wishing an 
open quarrel with his father's favourite, returns the soft answer : 
•* Not unto me." Medice encouraged by this speech ruffles up to 
Strozza, and Vincentio begs them to keep the peace. The two 
speeches of Vincentio in 11. 263 and 264 might be assigned to Al- 
phonso, but then it would be more difficult to explain how the 
mistake arose . I imagine that the names of Medice and Vincentio, 
standing in immediate proximity to each other, were simply trans- 
posed either by a transcriber or by the printer. 

161, 5. at large : fully. 

161, 8. chambers hung : /. e., with arras. 

162, 24. y' are overshot : you have gone too far, done 
wrong. 

162, 28, gives it out in wagers: makes bets. It was 
a not uncommon practice in Chapman's day for an amateur to play 
a part at a theatre for a wager. ' ' He should have played Jeronimo 
with a shoemaker for a wager." Knight of the Burning Pestle, 
Induction (Mermaid ed. p. 386). 

164, 53. both your choice commands: you may choose 
to remain a lady or become a princess. 

164, 56. I, faire nimph. This speech would seem naturally 
to belong to the Enchanter, but it is, I believe, better not to alter 
the text, and to regard it as an interruption by Vincentio containing 
a scarcely veiled sneer at Medice. 

164, 66-67. speake . . . mend: speak in such a way 
that you will never be able to better it ; a threat against the Prince 
and Strozza. 

166, 95. like the English . . . George : like St. 

George, the *' Signe " (/. e., watch-word) of England. Cf. *' Saint 
George of mery England, the signe of victoree." {^Faerie ^eene, 
I, X, 61.) 



284 iliotrs? 

166, 100. for soile : a technical expression in venery. A boar 
was said to '* take soil " when he plunged into a swamp or stream, 
where he stood at bay. 

166, 107. the shadow: the apparition of Margaret. 

166, 113. Th' intent . . . relies: the reason for bind- 
ing and bringing him hither depends upon their report, /, e., their 
report of the event to you. 

167, 130. made . . . this : made this a matter of difficulty, 
or seemed surprised at this. 

170, 172-173. two inward . . . gudgeons: two in- 
ternal, or mental characteristics which will swallow any bait. For 
the phrase cf. ^l Fooles, iii, i, 94, and Monsieur D^ Oli've, v, ii 
(ed. Pearson, p. 237). 

170, 177. vraft . . . favours: wave, beckon, to him from 
a distance with your hat and show him other favours. 

171,4. (In loving others): by reason of her love for 
another. 

171, 7-8. O, tisthat . . . in me. In Sir Gyles Goosecappe, 
a play which in many ways closely resembles TAe Gentleman Usher ^ 
there is a reference to a certain Ladie Furnifall, who *' is never in 
any sociable veine till she be typsie, for in her sobrietie she is mad and 
feares [frightens] my good little old Lord " (iii). From the way 
in which this reference is introduced the reader expects to see 
Lady Furnifall in this * ' drinking humour ' ' at the banquet in her 
lord's house (iv, ii). But she does not appear there, nor is her 
name to be found in the list oi dramatis personae. Now, according 
to the entry in Stationers' Register Sir Gyles was licensed for pub- 
lication '* provided that it be printed according to the copy whereat 
Mr. Wilson's hand is at." This entry certainly suggests that the 
acted play had been revised and certain passages expunged. 

Mr. Fleay {Biographical Chronicle^ 11, 322) holds that this revision 
was due to the personal satire contained in the play : " Goosecap, 
Rudesby, Foulweather, Tales, and Kingcob are certainly personal 
caricatures. ' ' Possibly some scene of drunken buffoonery in which 
a well-known lady of the court appeared under a thin disguise once 
existed in Sir Gyles^ and was struck out by the reviser. Chapman's 
Tragedy of Byron is known to have contained a scene in which 
the then living Queen of France boxed the ears of her husband's 



jliotesi 285 

mistress ; but readers will search in vain for this scene in the 
printed play. It seems to me quite likely that Chapman lifted the 
character of Lady Furnifall and the scenes in which she formerly 
appeared from Sir Gyles. Re-christening the lady and shifting the 
scene to Italy to avoid offence, he introduced them into The Gen- 
tleman Usher. It is a thousand pities that he did so. They doubt- 
less evoked Homeric laughter at the time, but they remain an in- 
delible blot upon his noblest romantic comedy. 

172, 22. make you heart-burnd : give you the heart- 
burn. 

172, 23. plide this geere: took to this business,/, e., of 
drinking. 

173, 34. well seene : well versed, skilled. 

I73j 36. wind . . . angry: she must have the best of every- 
thing or she '11 be angry. An old saying runs : '* When the wind 's 
in the west, then 'tis at the very best." (Hazlitt's English Pro- 
-verbs, p. 464.) 

174, 51. huddle and kettle: ''huddle" (see Glossary) 
refers to Corteza's broken speech ; *' kettle " (cf. " fine kettle," 
"kettle offish") to her behaviour. 

I75» 73- new-made . . . night: the lady who has been 
made his Duchess for this night. 

175, 82. Sir Giles Goosecap : the leading figure in the 
comic portion of the play by that name probably acted at Blackiriars 
ca. 1 602. He is ** of mere necessitie an asse " ; hence the propriety 
of applying his name to the servant. 

176, 94. to the faire . . . place: 

176, 97. you right . . . ease: to return your courtesy and 
for my own convenience. 

177, 104-105. Or else . . . badly done: the first symp- 
tom of the self-complacency which the Prince's flattery is later to 
blow up to such height of folly. 

179, 147-148. plucke . . . eares : a common phrase for 
stripping a servant of his livery, and so discharging him. 

180. man bugge and a woman : these are, of course, the 

pages who were practising their songs in i, ii, 22. 

182, 189. I scarce . . . height: I would hardly have dared 
to press on to the height I now occupy, /. e., the chair of state. 



286 jl^otes; 

182, 191. Sound, consort : Play up, musicians. 

182, 195. Whose moving. . . needes: Dr. Bradley 

suggests that "moving" is here a gerund governing "silence." 
The sense of the passage then would be : Beauty's appeal for silence 
is effectual by its own power ; it needs no herald to proclaim silence. 
The Quarto reading moning is an instance of the common misprint 
of n for u or v. 

182, Enter SarpegO. The musical show to which this 
character acts as prologue makes rather poor reading and certainly 
impedes the progress of the play. It must be remembered, however, 
that the play was probably performed by boys, and that most of the 
plays performed by companies of children contained a large amount 
of singing and dancing. The songs and dances no doubt gave life and 
charm to what seems dull enough at present. Jonson, the great master 
of the masque, commended Chapman as one of the few poets who 
was proficient in this art. We have but one masque ( The Masque 
of the Middle Temple^ of Chapman's authorship remaining ; but 
the entertainment in Act i and this scene in Act 11 of The Gentle- 
man Usher might be regarded respectively as the masque and anti- 
masque which went to make up a complete performance of this 
kind. 

183, 226. a hall, a hall : an exclamation used to make room 
in a crowded apartment, particularly at the beginning of a dance or 
show. 

184, 230. moone . . . bushes: according to an old supersti- 
tion the man in the moon is the Jew who broke the Sabbath ( Num- 
bers, XV, 32, seq. ) with his bundle of sticks. Dante, following 
another tradition, represents him as Cain with a fagot of thorns 
{^Inferno, xx, 126). 

185,251. rush ruffle . . . ten : to make the despised rush 
flaunt it in heroic verse, decasyllabics. 

185, 253. crie mercie : Vincentio ironically begs pardon for 
allowing his heels to rest on the about to be lauded rushes. 

185, 255-256. odde battaile . . . mice. Vide the 

Batrachomyomachia, a mock-heroic poem, formerly attributed to 
Homer, and translated by Chapman ca. 1624. 

185, 259-260. gentle amorous . . . sweetly swims. 

The passage has a curious resemblance to two famous lines of Milton 



jl^otetf 287 

(Paradise Lost,\\, 310-11) which Landor called, "the richest 
jewel that poetry ever wore." Landor, PVorh (1876), iv, 445, 
Milton's habit of plundering the dramatists is so well known that 
one need not hesitate to suggest, at least, this passage as his original. 

185, 266. bites . . . tongue: jeers at them. 

186, 278. disburthen them: unload them of the brooms 
and rushes. 

186, 286. her female friend : This can only be the syl- 
van. I suspect a text corruption, y^Wij/e being suggested by the 
word in 1. 290. 

188, 318. how conceit . . . mother: what think you of 

the young lady whom my father has chosen to be my stepmother. 

188, 320. bugs words : words of a monster, terrible words. 
Vincentio does not wish Cynanche to arouse Alphonso's suspicions. 

189. after the song : /. e., after the song and dance which 
in the Elizabethan theatre filled up the time between the acts. 

It is, perhaps, worth noting that this short scene between Medice 
and his servant, although not in any way divided from what follows in 
the Quarto, must, nevertheless, take place on the day preceding the 
events of the rest of Act iii. Medice says (1. 6) : ** to-morrow, 
then, the Duke intends to hunt " ; but (iii, ii, 215) Pogio says: 
"your father is going a hunting" ; and (iii, ii, 293) Alphonso 
says: *' come to our hunting." From the entrance of Vincentio 
and Bassiolo (iii, ii) the action is continuous and takes place on the 
morning after the entertainments at Lasso's house in Acts i and 11. 
It seems strange that a little scene of a dozen lines dealing with 
events of the previous evening should find this place in Act iii. 

It will be noticed, however, that this scene is a mere enlarge- 
ment of the brief colloquy between Medice and the First Huntsman 
(hi, ii, 313-314). If this scene had been written first there would 
be no need whatever for the whispered colloquy of Medice with the 
Huntsman, nor for the latter's promise, since the murder would 
have already been arranged. If, on the contrary, the brief colloquy 
was first written, it is easy to see how a performance would bring 
out the inadequacy of the preparation for the plot against Strozza. 
A good part of Acts iv and v is taken up with Strozza' 3 wounding 
and recovery, for which the only cause discoverable in the play 
would have been the words of the Huntsman — easily missed by all 



288 iliotes? 

but the most attentive listener of the audience — " I warrant you, 
my lord, he shall not scape me." It is plain, I think, that this 
opening scene was written later in order to afford the clear exposition 
which the Elizabethan audience insisted on. The two lines (in, ii, 
313-314) were doubtless omitted in subsequent performances, but 
occurring in the MS. submitted to the printer, found their present 
place. It is a question, I think, whether Chapman himself wrote 
the present opening of Act in. Certainly it is not beyond the 
powers of any theatre-hack. 

189, 5. in compasse . . . life : in the power of my life. 

190, 12. that even as . . . jacke : Koeppel points out that 

this mechanical simile has been seriously noted as one of the com- 
monplaces characteristic of Massinger. (EngliscAe Studien, ix, 219, 
223, 225.) Possibly the discovery will be made some day that in 
this scene Massinger, while a student at Oxford, lent his aid to the 
veteran Chapman. 

191, 37. brave beasts . . . armes : the allusion is to the 
beasts, brave in colours, that served as " supporters " to many noble 
coats-of-arms. 

192,57-58. doe not . . . selfe : think that others as well 
as you are men of unusual spirit. 

193, 61-62. respect . . . friendship: consideration of 

the common form of friendship. 

I94» 7^- godly gudgeons: goodly (/. e., proper) baits. 

194, 84. how are you : /. e., how are you gulled ? 

195, 100. figure . . . common : a mode of speech com- 
mon in the mouths of flatterers. 

195, no. tis now in use: a passage in Heywood's Hier- 
archy of the Blessed Angels, 1635 (Book iv), mentions the Eliza- 
bethan fashion of " curtaling " names, 

" Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose inchanting Quill 
Commanded Mirth or Passion, was but IVill. 
And famous Johnson, though his learned Pen 
Be apt in Castaly, is still but Ben^ 

I for my part 
(Thinke others what they may) accept that heart 
Which courts my love in most familiar phrase ; 



I hold he loves me best that calls me Tom.'" 
Compare also Revenge of Bussy, i, i, 260-261. 



0ottei 289 



200, 194. Hybla : a district in Sicily famous for its honey. 

200, 195. Meander. Ovid, Her aides, vn, I, 2, speaks of 
the white swan singing at the fords of Meander, a river in Asia 
Minor. 

202, 241. bodie of a George: a body as strong as St. 
George's. 

203, 250. set forth . . . gere : take this business in hand. 
203, 251. be naughts. The **i" in naughts is possibly 

superfluous. The phrase "be naught" is familiar in Elizabethan 
English, and is a humorous imprecation. It had at times, however, 
a coarse secondary meaning (see Malone's note on ^s Tou Like It^ 
I, i, 39, andcf. Anatomy of Melancholy, iii, p- 333 } ed. of 1893). 
The Neiv English Dictionary cites this passage under "naught," 
/'. ^., as = keep quiet, withdrawn. 

203, 269. put me to it : force me to yield to your courtship. 

205,301. in full . . . faculties : by the unanimous con- 
sent of all my powers of mind. 

205, 311. suspect my being : suspect my whereabouts. 

206,315-316. till . . . absence : till the hunting that we 
intend is ended by my leaving the field. 

207, 335. Is the man madde: cf. Julia's reprimand to 
Lucetta for bringing her a love-letter ( Tivo Gentlemen of Verona, 
I, ii, 41-47). Chapman may have derived a hint from Shake- 
speare, but in this scene he has fairly surpassed him. 

207, 345-346. was there . . . discretion: was a woman 
ever so mistaken in regard to a supposedly wise man's discretion ? 
Cf. Shirley, Hyde Park, \, ii : " How are poor women overseen ! " 

208,361. dote . . . direction : there is a double meaning 
in this speech. It may mean " I am so foolishly apt to follow your 
direction," or " I am so foolishly fond of you." Bassiolo naturally 
takes it in the second sense. Margaret's next speech is an aside. 

209, 379-380. fretted . . . liver : vexed her to the heart. 
The liver was formerly supposed to be the seat of the passions. 

210, 402. He be your secretorie : this scene is at once a 
working over of Sir Gyles Goosecappe, iv, i, and an immense im- 
provement upon it. 

211, 405. Is heere . . . answer: is this letter from the 

Prince not worth your answering ? 



290 jIiote£J 

211, 419. Which: the antecedent is ** muse" not "braine." 

212, 426, 429, 435. "endeare," "condole," "mo- 
dell " : all comparatively new words in Chapman's day. The first 
quotations for " endeare " and "condole" in the Ne'w English 
Dictionary are 1500 and 1588 respectively. 

212, 447-448. your exceptions . . . collaterally: 

your objections are not well founded. 

213, 469. your lordships, etc. The letter of Bassiolo is 
a deliberate piece of high-flown nonsense. 

215, 530 you may speede : you may have bad luck. 
" Speede " seems to be used here as in TAe Ball, iv, i, in an iron- 
ical or negative sense. 

217, 7. a forked shaft : a barbed arrow. 

219, 39-40- Rise Furies . . . conquer : Strozza calls 
on the Furies, as goddesses of Madness, to conquer his terrible 
suffering ('* furie of my bane ") by driving him mad. 

219,41-42. That hath . . . fate: madness, which to 
human sense seems blind, sets free, with present fate, the soul from 
hope and fear. 

220, 57. th' Alcmenean conquerour : Hercules, son of 
Alcmene. 

220, 60. scarcely beaten . . . cries : cries are scarcely 
fitting for beaten children. 

220, 67-68. whose actions . . . respect: the soul's 

actions, once conceived and executed, "simply" (/ e., without 
admixture of the physical) put the weaknesses of the body out of our 
consideration. 

220, 69. unmedcinable . . . breath : this balm of 

spoken words, powerless to cure, 

220, 73. He breake away. These words are wrung from 
Strozza by a fresh spasm of pain. 

220, 77. religious noblesse : pious nobility of mind. 
Cynanche refers to Strozza's vow (1. 71, above). 

221, 2. in respect of mine : in comparison to mine. 

222, 15. Guevara's Golden Epistles. Antonio de 
Guevaras was a Spanish writer of the first half of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. His Epistolas Familiares, were translated into English in 
1574 J and a second translation under the title of Golden Epistles 



il^otesf 291 

by Fenton in 1575 became a very popular book in cultivated cir- 
cles. Prof. Koeopel [^uellen und Forschungen, no. 82, p. 9) in- 
clines to see in the mention of this book by such a foolish person 
as Bassiolo a plain sign of its declining influence at the time The 
Gentleman Usher was composed. I cannot, however, accept this 
view. Bassiolo is exactly the man to read the books that his betters 
were reading. 

225, 69. in his kinde : according to its proper nature. 

225, 84. laugh and lie downe : the name of a game of 
cards, used here with a double meaning. 

226,94. all merit . . . chinks : the chinking of his gold 
rings bells in honour of the highest merit. 

229, 140. lawes . . . common world : a characteristic 
thought of Chapman's. Cf. Bussy D"" Ambois, 11, i, 194-199. 

229, 153-157- hide your face ... on mine. Com- 
pare the marriage ceremonies in Hero and Leander, v, 352-358. 

231, 193-194- your choice . . . free: your free choice 
of action shall not be hampered by your marriage. 

231,202. popular sects : vulgar opinions. 

232, 214. Tantalus pig: Pogio's mistake for " Tantony 
pig," /. e. , St. Antony's pig. Stow relates how the pigs, belonging 
to St. Antony's hospital, roamed the streets of London at the heels 
of those who fed them : " Whereupon was raised a Proverbe, Such 
an one ivil foUoiv such an one, & ivhine as it ivere an Anthonie 
P'g.^^ (Stow, Suruey of London, 1633, p. 190.) 

^ZZi^l- Like the twins Hippocrates reports: 

St. Augustine (De Ci'vitate Dei, v, 2) says that Cicero reports 
Hippocrates to have pronounced a pair of brothers twins from the 
fact that they both took ill at the same time, and that the disease 
advanced and subsided simultaneously in both cases. The original 
passage is wanting in the extant works of Hippocrates, and Cicero's 
quotation is supposed to have occurred in his lost book, De Fato. 
Chapman makes the same allusion in his Masque of the Middle 
Temple (^TVorks, vol. iii, p. 1 1 6) and in his poem on A Good 
Woman {Works, vol. 11, p. 1 52). 

234, 21. his SWeete ape : in his introduction to Sir Gyles 
Goosecappe {Old Plays, vol. 3) Mr. Bullen has pointed out that 
this phrase occurs in that anonymous play : 



292 ^om 



Doe women bring no helpe of soule to men, 

Why, friend, ihey eitlier are men's soules themselves, 

Or prettiest sweet apes of human soules. 

Sir Gyles Goosecappe^ p, JJ. 

Mr. Bullen thinks that these lines may have been added to the 
play after the appearance of The Gentleman Usher ^ or that the un- 
known author of Sir Gyles may have seen Chapman's play in 
manuscript. It is far more likely Chapman was simply borrowing 
from himself. 

234, 28. nor choice meats: nor do choice meats delight 
more than one sense. 

234, 36-37. armes . . . gold : possibly a reminiscence of 
All Fooles^ III, i, 20-21. 

235, 48. In which . . . powres : by reason of which 
patience my mind extends her powers that are incapable of suflFering. 

235, 62. a sort . . . globes : a set of balls of crystal, such 
as were then used for divination. 

236, 83. his reasonable soule: his soul which alone is 
capable of reason. Cynanche fears from the ** idle talk " of Strozza 
that his mind is giving way, and that this is a sign of speedy death. 

240, 14. Corteza search. Professor Koeppel has pointed 
out that an analogous scene to this appears in Fletcher's A Wife 
for a Month, i, ii. 

241, 25-26. Madam . . . Duke: The Quartos assign 
this speech to Lasso. But Lasso is not present at this time. He 
enters later after 1. 56. 

242, 53. hunt at view: hunt by sight not by scent, a 
phrase used when the hounds are close upon their prey. 

242, 55. blew cry stall: cf. note on 235, 62. 

243, 68 . forge . . . gloses : the source of these specious 
explanations. 

244, 101-102. and you thinke . . . betimes: if you 

intend to make an ass of me, you must get up early 

250, 32. shay: the pronunciation indicated by this spelling, 
and the ejaculation Gosh hat (1. 26), are possibly meant as signs 
that Bassiolo has been fortifying himself with ** Dutch courage." 

251, 34- ruftie tuftie wise : rough and tumble fashion. 



il^otesf 293 

251,48. go e by : slink off. A cztcb-word from the Spanis A 
Tragedy^ constantly repeated in later plays. 

25 1) 53- Belle piu. This is evidently the refrain of a song. 
The Iterum cant, which follows in the Quarto is a stage-direction, 
bidding Bassiolo sing a second time, probably the song indicated by 
the refrain. Belle piu. 

252, 57. Bobadilla: /. «., Bobadil, the braggart captain in 
E'very Man in His Humour. 

254, 104. WO ho: the call used by falconers to reclaim the 
hawk. 

255, 124. For wreake . . . sustaine : in revenge for 
that exile from joy which I endure, i. e. , in his loss of the hope of 
winning Margaret. 

256, Enter AlphonsO, etc. According to the stage-direc- 
tion of the Quarto Margaret should go out with Vincentio, but from 
I. 140 it is evident that she is still on the stage. I have emended 
therefore to show that she is detained by her father. 

258. Strozza having the arrowhead. It is evident 
that this scene must take place seven days later than the third 
scene of Act iv. But from that scene the action is apparently 
continuous through Act v, sc. i. The proper division between 
Acts IV and v, therefore, would be at the beginning of this scene. 
Such a division would allow a seven days' interval between the acts, 
giving time for Vincentio to be overtaken on the borders of the 
Duke's country, for the news of his supposed death to reach Mar- 
garet (sc. iii), and finally for him to be brought back to court in a 
litter (sc. iv). 

259, 30. Cloy'st . . . him : dost not grow weary of him, 
surfeit with his company. 

259, 36. superstitious rite : an eminently characteristic 
passage. Chapman loved a paradox. He defends duelling (Bussy 
D'' Am hois, 11, i) ; the character of the Duke of Guise {Re'venge 
of Bussy, II, i) ; private and unlicensed marriage [Gentleman 
Usher, IV, ii) ; the rights of a child against a father and of a subject 
against his prince {Gentleman Usher, v, iv).^ This frank apology 
for pilgrimages shows that Chapman had nothing of the hatred 

I In Sir Gjiles Goosecappe (pp. 71, 72) we have a paradoxical defence of 
ladies painting to add to this list. 



294 0OttfSi 



of Papistry that appears in the works of many of his contem- 
poraries. 

259, 38. resignde to memorie : consigned to the church 

as a memorial. 

260,41-42. which . . . lives: if this patience were for- 
gotten after my death, the example I have set would be lost to 
posterity. 

261, 78. Monks-well. This name, and that of St. Mark's 
StreetCy v, iii, 10, may, perhaps, lead to the discovery of the hitherto 
unknown source of this play. 

263,23 Cleopatra: the story of Cleopatra's experiments to 
discover the easiest mode of death is told by Plutarch in his Life of 
Antony. In speaking of the honour paid to Cleopatra, Chapman 
possibly had in mind Chaucer, who places her story at the head of 
his Legend of Good TVomen as one of Cupid's saints. 

263, 32-34. Adelasia . . . knife. There are so many 
mistakes crowded into these three lines as to show that Chapman was 
quoting from a book read long since and well-nigh forgotten. In the 
first place, the heroine who defaced her features was not Adelasia, 
the daughter of Otho III of Germany (concerning whose adven- 
tures see Painter's Palace of Pleasure ^ nov. 44), but Florinda (nov. 
53). Secondly, the instrument used was not a knife but a stone, 
with which she * ' foully defaced her face. ' ' Thirdly, neither the 
story of Adelasia nor that of Florinda is told by Pettie, although, as 
Professor Koeppel has shown, both of them are mentioned ( ^el- 
len und Forschungen, no. 82, pp. 9, 10). Lastly, either Chapman 
or the printer gives the wrong title of the book. The proper 
title is A Pettie Palace of Pettie His Pleasure. This work of George 
Pettie was licensed in 1576, and was so successful that three edi- 
tions of it were published in the same year. Later editions were 
issued in 1580 and after the author's death (1589), in 1598, 1608, 
and 16 1 3. As Professor Koeppel has shown, Pettie's style exhibits 
many of the most characteristic traits of " Euphuism " three years 
before the publication of Euphues. Painter's well-known collection 
of stories. The Palace of Pleasure, a name which was seized upon 
for Pettie's book by the latter's publisher, appeared in 1567 and 
1568. I suggest, with some hesitation, that this unmetrical and 
unnecessary line may have been originally merely a marginal com- 



0om 295 

ment which has crept into the text by an error of the transcriber or 
printer. 

265, 72. yet. The it of the Quarto is probably a misprint for 
the yt, t. e., yet of the MS. For the thought, cf. // King Henry 
VI^ III, ii, 391. 

268, 42. pagan Nero. The justification of this epithet 
appears in the next lines. It was a commonplace of Elizabethan 
poetry that the parent lived again in his child and his child's child- 
ren. Chapman exaggerates this commonplace into the paradox 
that a son is both father and mother of his father. Since Nero 
killed his mother, and Alphonso ordered the death of both his 
parents in his son, the equation Alphonso = Nero appears to have 
some ground. 

269,54-55. Turne . . . begot them: Strozza is appar- 
ently thinking of the myth of Saturn, who devoured his children. 

269, 56. what 's a prince : one of the best-known passages 
in Chapman's work. The idea that in the state of nature all men 
were princes appears again in Bussy D^ Ambois, n, i, 198, ** Let 
me be King my selfe (as man was made)." Swinburne calls this 
passage "the first direct protest, as far as I know, against the 
principle of monarchy to be found in our poetical or dramatic liter- 
ature." (Swinburne, George Chapman, p. 61.) 

270, 85. unnatural wounds : because inflicted upon a son 
by permission of a father. 

270, 85, moning right: by rightly, duly, lamenting the 
loss of Margaret's beauty. Mr. Daniel suggests the emendation 
*' moving sight"; Dr. Bradley would read " moving right " in the 
sense of " setting right," " restoring to its rights." 

272, 122. Assist me . . . maske. I have followed in 
the punctuation of the text what appears to be the meaning of the 
Quarto. But I am inclined to think that we might read : * ' Assist 
me Heaven and Art ! Give me your maske," taking the last words 
of the line as addressed either to Margaret or Cynanche The 
doctor, taking the mask in his hand, would then turn to his casket, 
and after the lines *' Open thou . . . influence" would moisten the 
mask with a drug, thus making it '* recureful." Otherwise, as the 
text stands, we must suppose him to appeal to Art, /. e., Medi- 
cine, to give him the mask, in this case a mask that he himself had 
brought along with other medical appliances. 



296 ^otta 

272, 125. Medeas cauldron. Medea the enchantress had 
a caldron which possessed the power of restoring youth to those who 
permitted themselves to be cut to pieces and boiled in it. She thus 
restored the youth of Aeson. 

272,126. the Ugliest . . . temp'rature: the most dan- 
gerous impairment of a living creature's constitution. 

272, 138. In twice . . . recure: be cured in twice the 
period that you shall have suffered. 

275, 197- Set by . . . favour: your favour being set 
aside, /. e., if Medice were judged not as your minion, but on his 
own merits. 

276, 214. your Sonne : dative of interest after •* sought." 

277, 244. damn'd deserts: deeds that deserve damnation. 

278, 251. scandall . . . honour: in that Mendice had 
usurped the honourable name of Medice. 

278, 254. Zant : Zante or Zacynthus, one of the Ionian 
Isles. 

279, 283. Fox, Fox . . . hole: an old Christmas game 
mentioned by Herrick. *' Boys hopped on one leg and beat one 
another with gloves or pieces of leather tied at the end of strings." 
Grosart, Complete Poems of Herrick^ v. 2, p. 37. 



The place of publication is London unless otherwise indicated. 

I. TEXTS 

1605, 4°. Al I FooLES : I A j Comody, Presented at the Black | 
Fryers^ And lately before | his Maiestie. | Written by George Chap- 
man. I Printed for Thomas Thorpe, [For the relations of extant 
copies in the great libraries, see Note on Text.] 

1 606, 4°. The I Gentleman | Usher. | By ( George Chap- 
man. I Printed by V. S. for Thomas Thorppe. [For relations of 
existing copies in the great libraries, see Note on Text.] 

1780, 8°. A Select Collection OF Old Plays : The Second 
Edition, Corrected and Collated with the Old Copies, with Notes, 
Critical and Explanatory, by Isaac Reed. 12 vols. [Volume iv 
contains All Fools.] 

1810, 8°. The Ancient British Drama. Three vols. [Vol- 
ume 11 contains y4ll Fools. This collection was edited by Walter 
Scott.] 

1825, 8°. A Select Collection of Old Plays: A New Edi- 
tion, with Additional Notes and Corrections, by the late Isaac Reed, 
Octavius Gilchrist, and the Editor [J. P. Collier]. Twelve vol- 
umes. [Volume IV contains j4ll Fools, to which is prefixed a life of 
Chapman, a list of his plays, and the dedicatory Sonnet to Sir 
Thomas Walsingham. The play is accompanied by critical and ex- 
planatory footnotes.] 

1873, 8°. The Comedies and Tragedies of George Chap- 
man. Now first collected, with illustrative notes and a memoir of 
the author. In three volumes. London, John Pearson, York 
Street, Covent Garden, [Volume i contains ./ill Fools and The 
Gentleman Usher, together with The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 
An Humorous Day s Mirth, and Monsieur U Oli-ve. The text 
purports to be an exact reproduction of the Quartos of 1605 and 



298 llBibliograpt)^ 

1606 of All Fools and The Gentleman Usher , but is not absolutely 
reliable, especially in the matter of punctuation. The dedicatory 
sonnet is reproduced in this reprint.] 
\ 1874-5, 8°. The Works of George Chapman : edited with 
notes by Richard Heme Shepherd. Chatto and Windus. [Vol. i, 
Plays, vol. II, Poems and Minor Translations, vol. in, Homer's 
Iliad and Odyssey. An edition in modernised spelling, with occa- 
sional departures from the original text. The notes are few and of 
little value. Mr. Swinburne's Essay on the Poetical and Dramatic 
y Works of George Chapman is prefixed to vol. 11.] 
^ 1895, 8°. George Chapman, edited with an Introduction and 
Notes by William Lyon Phelps. London : T. Fisher Unwin. New 
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895. [This volume of the Mer- 
maid Series contains All Fools along with the two Bussy and the 
two Byron tragedies. The text is taken from the reprint of 1873, 
but the spelling has been modernised and the punctuation altered. 
There is a biographical and critical introduction, and a few explan- 
atory notes appear below the text.] 

II. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL WORKS 

Besides monographs and essays specially devoted to All Fools 
and The Gentleman Usher, this list includes such general tuorks 
on the drama and on Chapman and his plays as are likely to prove 
useful to the general reader or student. See also the memoirs and 
critical matter in the volumes listed under Texts. 

1 69 1. The Lives and Characters of the English Dra- 
MATicK Poets. G. Langbaine. Oxford. 

1691. Athenae Oxonienses. Anthony a Wood: vol. 11, 
pp. 575-79 (edition continued by P. Bliss, 18 15). Short life of 
Chapman. 

1808. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets. Charles 
Lamb. No quotations from All Fools or The Gentleman Usher are 
given, but Lamb's comment on Chapman's style is noteworthy. 

1 81 8. Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the 
Age of Elizabeth. W. Hazlitt. Lecture iii, On Marston, Chap- 
many Dekker, and Webster. 



Bibliograpti^ 299 

1821. The Retrospective Review, vol. iv : Chapman^ i 
Plays. The article deals wholly with the tragedies. 

1822. Retrospective Review, volume v. This article is on 
the comedies. All Fools, The Gentleman Usher, and The Widoiu^ 
Tears. A further article promised (vol. v, p. 332) on Chapman's 
joint plays, '*in our next number," seems never to have appeared. 

1 84 1. The Edinburgh Review, April : Beaumont and 
Fletcher and their Contemporaries. This article contains a brief note 
on Chapman. 

1865. Chapman in seinem Verhaltniss zu Shakespeare. 
F. Bodenstedt. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, vol. i. Berlin. A general 
discussion of Chapman's characteristics as a dramatist, of little real 
value. Bodenstedt mentions an " unkritische und mangelhafte 
Ausgabe [of Chapman] welche in Jahre 1843 erschien." I have 
not been able to identify this edition. No English edition of Chap- 
man's plays appeared in 1843. 

1874. The Cornhill Magazine, July : Chapman s Dramatic 
Works. A slight and worthless review of the reprint of Chapman's 
plays in 1873. 

1875. George Chapman: A Critical Essay. A. C. Swin- 
burne. A reprint of the Introductory Essay to vol. 11 of the edi- 
tion of Chapman's works edited by R. H. Shepherd. Chatto and 
Windus. A brilliant and stimulating study of Chapman as a poet 
and dramatist. 

1881. Ueber George Chapman's Homer Uebersetzung. 
H. M. Regel, HaUe. 

1887. George Chapman's Leben und Werke. J. A. Scharf, 
Wien. 

1887. '^"^ Dictionary of National Biography, vol. x. 
Article on George Chapman by A. H. Bullen. 

1 891. A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama. 
F. G. Fleay. Vol. i, pp. 50^66. Vol. 11, pp. 232, 238-9, 241, 
260 and 275. 

1892. Der Blankvers in den Dramen George Chap- 
mans. Emil Elste, Halle. A minute examination of the metrical 
structure of Chapman's dramas upon the basis of Schipper's En- 
glische Metrik. It does not present any new facts to the student of 
Elizabethan drama, and like most German metrical studies errs on 
the side of a mechanical regularity. 



300 Bibliograpl)^ 

1897. (^UELLEN-STUDIEN ZV DEN DrAMEN GeORGE ChAP- 

man's, Philip Massinger's und John Ford's. Emil Koeppel. 
[^uel/en und Forschungen : Heft 82. ) A scholarly monograph on 
the sources of Chapman's dramas j it should, however, be supple- 
mented by the later work of Stiefel (vide infra) and Boas ( Bussy 
D* Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy ^ Belles Lettres Series, 1905). 

1899. A History of English Dramatic Literature to 
THE Death of Queen Anne. A. W. Ward. New and Revised 
edition. Vol. 11, pp. 408-450. 

1900. George Chapman und das Italienische Drama. 
A. L. Stiefel. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, Band xxxv. A study of the 
source of Chapman's May— Day, i. e. , A. Piccolomini's-^/«ifl«</ro. 

1 90 1. Letters and Documents by George Chapman, 
Ben Jons on, etc. Athenaeum, nos. 3830-3833. These docu- 
ments are selections from a MS. copy-book discovered by Mr. 
Bertram Dobell. Six of the letters have also been reprinted in 
Professor Schelling's Eastivard Hoe and The Alchemist^ Belles 
Lettres Series, 1903. 

1 90 1. George Chapman's Tragodie 'Caesar und Pom- 
pey ' UND IHRE QuELLEN. A. Kern, Halle. 

1903. Eastward Hoe and The Alchemist. Edited by F. E. 
ScheUing. Belles-Lettres Series, Section III. 

1903. Shakespeare and the Rival Poet. Arthur Acheson. 
An attempt to identify Chapman with the rival poet of Shake- 
speare's sonnets, accompanied by a reprint of The Shadoiv of Night, 
Ovid^s Banquet of Sense, A Coronet for his Mistress Philosophy, 
The Amorous Zodiac, To M. Harriots, and The Tears of Peace. 

1903. George Chapman. A. Lohff, Berlin. 

1903. George Chapman's Ilias-ubersetzung, A. Lohff, 
Berlin. An extension of the foregoing work. 

1904. Chapman's * All Fools ' mit Berucksichtigung seiner 
QuELLEN. M. Stier, Halle. In the main a close comparison of 
All Fools and the Heautontimorumenos . Stier was ignorant of the 
relation of All Fools to the Adelphi. 

1905. Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Am- 
BOis. Edited by F. S. Boas. Belles Lettres Series, Section III. 
A scholarly edition of these plays based upon the original texts. It 
gives us for the first time a reliable text of Bussy. The introduc- 
tion and notes are most valuable to the student of Chapman. 



(BlojSjsart 



abodement, omen. A. F. iv, 

i, 378. 
abusde, wronged, deceived. 

a U. V, i, 5. 
ale-knights, pot-companions, 

tavern-haunters. G. U. iii, ii, 

354. 
ammell, enamel. G. U. i, i, 

199. 
anatomizde, dissected. G. U. 

IV, i, 28. 
antike, grotesque. G. U. 11, 

i, 294. 
ape, mimic, imitator. G. U. 

IV, iii, 21. 
applausive, applauded. A. F. 

", ', 337- 
apprehension, ability to re- 
ceive. A. F. II, i, 32. 
appro v'd, proved, made good. 

G. U. V, ii, 8. 
aspir'd, attained. A. F. i, i, 

6. 

bable, fool. G. U. m, ii, 247. 
babies, baubles, trifles. G. U. 

II, i, 261. 
banquet, a course of swreet- 

meats, fruit, and wine served 

as dessert. G. U. 11, i, 309. 
barly-breake, an old country 

game, originally played by six 



persons, three of each sex, 
something like *< Prisoners' 
Bars." A. F. i, ii, 67. 

basted, marked. A. F. iii, i, 
342- 

beisance, obeisance, a court- 
esy. G. U. I, ii, 41. 

beldams, old women {nvUhout 
the usual derogatory sense). 
G. U. IV, iv, 30. 

bench - whistlers, idlers, 

worthless fellows. A. F. 11, 

i, 1 77-. 

bestowing, settlement in mar- 
riage. G. U. Ill, ii, 359. 

bewraies, divulges, reveals. 
G. U. I, i, 119. 

blaze, proclaim. A. F, i, i, 
63. 

blowse, a beggar wench. A. 

F. IV, i, 97. 

bone robes, pretty wenches. 

G. U. Ill, ii, 197. 
boord, accost. G. U. i, ii, 1 76. 
brache, bitch. G. U. i, i, 159. 
brake, trap. G. U. m, ii, 392. 
briske, spruce, smart. A. F. 

in, i, 301. 

Broome-man, a street-sweep- 
er. G. U. II, i, 135. 

buckram, literally precise, 
formal (^here a general term of 



302 



idloa^m 



abuse, perhaps "stuck-up"). 
G. U. I, i, ii8. 
bug, bogy, hobgoblin. G. U. 
II, i, 165. 

capriches, caprices. G. U. 
V, i, 17. {^Chapman s use 
of the ivord here precedes by 
about fifty years the first ex- 
ample quoted in the N. E. D. ) 

carouze ('^•)> drink a bumper. 
^. F. V, ii, 34. 

carowse (^O* ^ bumper. j4. F. 
V, ii, 53- 

carpet, a cover for a table, 
bed, or chair. G. U. 11, i, 

75- 
carquanet, a golden and 
jewelled ornament for the neck 
or head. G. U. iv, iv, 22. 
cast (i.), a couple. G. U. i, 
i, 65. 

(1;.) plan, devise. G. U. 
I, i, 279. 

mustered out. A. F. v, ii, 

363- 
censure, judgment. A. F. 

Prologus, 26. 
chared, driven away. G. U. 

I, ii, 115. {Possibly a text 

corruption. See note ad. loc.) 
close (i.), enclosed field. A. F. 

I, ii, 130. 

{a.) secret. A. F. in, i, 

400-401 ; tight. G. U. I, 

ii, 166. 
closely, privately. A. F. i, i, 

45- 



clownerie, boorishness. A. F. 

II, i, 85. 
cockatrice, basilisk. A. F. 

III, i, 363. 
cockrill-drone, a term of 

abuse, coined from ** cocke- 
rel," a gay young man, and 
** drone," an idler. A. F. 

IV, i, 282. 

COgge, cheat, deceive. G. U. 
Ill, ii, 75. 

COllatterally, indirectly. 

G. U. Ill, ii, 448. 

come you Seaven, dice- 
player, gambler. A. F. 11, i, 

commission, legal warrant. 

G. U. I, i, 6. 
complement, compliment, 

formal politeness. A. F. 11, i, 

128. 
COnceipt, opinion. G. U. iv, 

'», 39- 
conceive, understand. G. U. 

I, i, 182. 
conge, bow of salutation. 

A. F. II, i, 156. 
consort, company of musicians. 

G. U. II, i, 191. 
consumption, destruction. 

A. F. I, i, 286. 
content, satisfaction, pleasure. 

G. U. V, iv, 105. 
COntesteS, affirms with an 

oath. A. F. II, i, 61. 
COpesmates, adversaries. 

A. F. 11, i, 229. 

partner. A. F. iv, i, 248. 



(3\o^im 



303 



COyn'd, invented. j4. F. hi, 

i, 266. 
cringle crangle, twisted, 

curved. G. U. i, i, 202. 
crowned, brimming. ^. F. 

V, ii, 34- 
cullion, low rascal. j4. F. 

II, i, 145. 
CUnni-holes, cony, or rabbit, 

holes. G. U. IV, iv, 31. 
curious, fastidious. A. F. 

Epi/oguty 5. 

dawish, pertaining to a daw, 
foolish. y4. F. Ill, i. 395. 

debilitie, inability. G. U. 
I, i, 274. 

decorum, congruity, harmony, 
G. U. II, i, 185. 

defesances, *'a defeazance is 
a collateral deed made at the 
same time with a feoffment 
. . . containing certain con- 
ditions, upon the performance 
of which the estate then cre- 
ated may be defeated or totally 
undone ' ' ( Blackstone) . A.F. 

demilance, light horseman, 

cavalier. G. U. iv, ii, 80. 
determine, cease. ^. F. v, 

"'.359- 
device, contrivance, ingenious 

writing. G. U. iii, ii, 464. 
devise, consider. G. U. i, ii, 

156. 
disparagement, marriage to 

one of inferior rank, the dis- 



grace involved in such a mar- 
riage. A. F I, i, 266. 
dispatch, hasten away. G. U. 

h ', 59- 
dissolved, freed. G. U. v, 

iii, 74. 
distempers, disorderly habits. 

A. F. V, i, 72. 
divided, incomplete. A. F. i, 

i, 10. 
doomes, judgments. A. F. 

Prologus, 25. 
dormer, sleeping-room. A. F. 

IV, i, 345- 
due gard, Dieugarde, a salu- 
tation or ejaculation, A. F. 

IV, i, 284. 

effected, performed. A. F. 

IV, i, 181. 
eloigne, remove. A. F. iv, i, 

339- 
engag'd, bound as security, 
A. F. V, i, 27. 

won over. G. U. i, i, 

97- 
errant, arrant. A. F. II, i, 

141. 
escapes, pranks, peccadilloes. 

G. U. I, i, 109. 
everted, overthrown. A. F. 

IV, i, 107. 
excitations, incitements. 

G. U. V, ii, 46. 
exclaimes, reproaches. G. U. 

V, iv, 34. 
exorbitant, overlarge. A. F. 

Ill, i, 425. 



304 



(Slo0fi?ar^ 



expiate, cleanse, purify. G. U. 

V, iv, 276. 
exploded, hissed off the stage. 

A. F. Pro/ogus, 16. 

fact, crime. G. U. v, ii, 52. 
factor, go-between. G. U. iv, 

iv, 76. 
fircke, drive off. A. F. Ill, i, 

291. 
flundering, floundering. G. U. 

I, i, 198. 

fore-melting, completely 

melting. G. U. iv, ii, 160. 
frivall, frivolous. A. F. 11, i, 

68. 
furnisht, used reflexi-vely as in 

Ward'' s Simple Cobler, see N. 

E. D. A. F. II, i, 164. 
furniture, apparel, outfit. 

G. U. I, i, 223. 

gag-tooth 'd, tusked. G. U. 
I, i, 201. 

gird, mock, make a jest of. 
G. U. n, i, 159. 

glases, covers with a glaze. 
A. F. II, i, 80. 

groome, fellow [in a con- 
temptuous sense). A. F. i, i, 
160. 

ground, background. A. F. 

h i, 49- 
gull (s.), a dupe. A. F. 11, i, 
360. 

a trick. A. F. iv, i, 398. 
(t.) to cheat, to trick. 
A. F. II, i, 368. 



hammer, the yellow-hammer 
(^used as a term for a fool ^ like 
^^ nvoodcock'"). G. U. I, i, 
164. 

harbenger, harbinger, mes- 
senger sent in advance to se- 
cure lodgings. A. F. iii, i, 
348. 

heffer {used here as a general 
term of contempt). A. F. i, ii, 

57. 
honor, abow. A. F. 11, i, 157. 
hope, expect, suspect. G. U. 

II, i, 175. 

huddles, nonsense. G. U. in, 

ii, 218. 
humorous, capricious. A. F. 

h i» 33- 

ill-humoured, moody. 

A. F. Ill, i, 192. 
husband, A. F. 11, i, 398. 

See Note, p. 126. 
huswiferie, behavior {in a 

derogatory sense). G. U. v, i, 

115. 

imbrierd, tangled in the briars. 

A. F. IV, i, 411. 
impeach, hindrance. A. F. 

III, i, 247. 

impiety, unfilial act. A. F. 

IV, i, 125. 

imploy, include. A. F. n, i, 
90. 

imprest, printed. A. F. Dedi- 
cation, p. 140, 1. 9. 

inditer, author. G. U. in, ii, 
544- 



<0los(0ar^ 



305 



inducement, induction, in- 
troduction. G. U. I, i, 184. 
informes, gives form to. A. F. 

I, i, 104. 

infringe, cancel, break. G. U. 

IV, iv, 105. 

ingagde, engaged, compro- 
mised. G. U. in, ii. 213. 
ingle, companion, fool. G. U. 

V, i, 167. 

intend, apprehend, judge. 

A. F. I, i,'249. 
invade, intrude upon. G. U. 

V, iii, 48. 
irrenitable, irresistible. A. F. 

V, ii, 345- 

kind, affectionate. G. U. i, i, 
106. 

proper, natural. A. F. in, 
i, 482. 

iegerdeheele, lightheeled 

(/. e. wanton) tricks. A. F. 
Ill, i, 158. 
let (i.), hindrance. G. U. 11, 1, 
90 J (i/. ) to hinder. G U. 

II, i, 89. 

lyte, little, valueless. A. F. 11, 
i, 385. 

managed, a technical term 
for putting a horse through 
his paces. G. U. i, i, 208. 

mankinde, fierce. A. F. iv, 
i, 236. 

maynd, maimed. A. F. i, i, 
385- 



mazer, head. A. F. in, i, 

308. 
minion, a favorite. G. U. i, i, 

121. 
miserable, miserly. G. U. i, 

i, 127. 
Momus, the god of raillery, a 

scoffer. G. U. n, i, 263. 
moove, apply to, A. F. iv, i, 

125. 
motions, demands. G. U. v, 

ii, 20. 
mumming, disguising, espe- 
cially by a mask. G. 17. 11, i, 

204. 
muse, am astonished. G. U. 

m, ii, 336. 

natural, legitimate. A. F. 11, 
i, 410. 

ne, nay. A. F. i, i, 312. 

nicenesse, fastidiousness. 
G. U. Ill, ii, 61. 

nicetie, coyness. G. U. n, 
i, 276. 

noyse, a company of musi- 
cians. A. F. V, ii, 39. 

obsequies, rites. A. F. i, ii, 

19- 
ought, owed. A. F. I, ii, 77. 

pageant, to carry about as a 
show. G. U. I, i, 256. 

pantable, slipper. A. F. v, 
ii, 236. 

parle, speech. A. F. i, i, 
117. 



3o6 



(Slo^flfar^ 



picked, dandified. A. F. v, 

ii, 7. 
pile, the head of an arrow. 

G. U. IV, i, 82. 
playne, frank. A. F. II, i, 

415- 
point, a tagged lace for joining 
doublet and hose, A. F. v, 

"'. ?• 

politique, worldly wise, schem- 
ing. A. F. I, i, 401. 

port, state, style of living. 
G. U. V, iv, 258. 

pottle, a two-quart measure, 
a tankard. A. F. v, ii, 

95.. 
president, precedent, pattern. 

A. F. I, i, 336. 
prevented, anticipated. G. U. 

V, i, 5- 
price, worth, value. G. U. 

IV, ii, 172. 

procures, causes. G. U. iv, 

iv, 81. 
projecting, devising. G. U. 

I, i, 215. 
propernesse, beauty. A. F. 

V, ii, 347. 
properties, characteristics. 

G. U. I, ii, 172. 
purlue, border {Acre, perhaps, 

extent). G. U. 11, i, 289. 
pulld, plucked. G. U. iii, ii, 

244. 
Push, pish, pshaw. G. U. 11, 

i, 263. 
put up, submit to, A. F. i, i, 

211. 



quallified, (-v.), mitigated. 
A. F. I, i, 395. 

{a.) accomplished. A. F. 

h}y 355- 

queint, dainty, fastidious. 
G. U. II, i, 275. 

ingenious. G. U. iii, ii, 
24. 

quintessence, a highly re- 
fined essence, something un- 
substantial. A. F. I, i, 44. 

quite, to requite. G. U. v, 
iv, 145. 

receypt, abiding-place. A. F. 
Ill, i, 48. 

recognizance, legal obliga- 
tion to pay a debt. A. F. v, 

i, 31- 
recure (i.), a cure. G. U. v, 
iv, 138. 

(v.) to cure. G. U. iv, 
iii, 41. 

redeeme, compound for. 

A. F. v, ii, 348. 
reflected, turned aside. A. F. 

h ', 331- 
reflecting, turning. A. F. 

I, i, 105. 
relish, savor of. ^. F. IV, i, 8. 
replications, legal documents 

containing the plaintiff's reply 

to the defendant's first answer. 

A. F. II, i, 329. 
resembled, made like unto. 

G. U. V, iv, 20. 
resolve, loose, free from. 

G. U. IV, i, 44. 



Mo^^m 



307 



dissolve. A. F. 11, i, 17. 
inform, answer. G. U. i, 
i, 112. 
respect, courteous, behavior. 
A. F. II, i, 85. 

reputation. G. U. i, i, 
102. 
respective, respectful. A. F. 

I, i, 36. 
rivalitie, rivalry. G. U. i, 1, 

93- 
round, a dance. G. U. 11, i, 

279. 
rude, crude, unfinished. A. F. 

I, ii, 123. 
rung out, celebrated by the 

ringing of bells. G. U. iv, ii, 

94- 
Rushman, one who strews 
rushes on the floor. G. U. iii, 
i, 134- 

satyrism, satire. A. F. Pro- 

logus, 19. 
SChoole, rebuke. A. F. 

HI, i, 66. 
scute, a French or Italian coin 

of variable value. A. F. v, 

ii, 20. 
seasoned, imbued. A. F. IV, 

i, 7. 
seely, simple, silly. G. U. iii, 

", 145- 
shroad, shrewd. A. F. iv, i, 

320. 
skundrell, scoundrel (like the 

'■^runt'" in a litter). A. F. 

V, ii, 192. 



smocke-faces, effeminate 

faces. A. F. v, i, 7. 
sollar, a garret. A. F. iv, i, 

345- 
solemne, ceremonious. G. U. 

I, i, 84. 
soothes, flatters. A. F. i, i, 

207. 
sort (^- ) » ^ number, a set. G. 

U. IV, iii, 62. 

(-z;.) happen, fall out. 

G. U. Ill, ii, 447. 
sortfully, suitably. G. U. m, 

ii, 1 1, 
speede, fare well, or ill {am- 
biguous use). G. U. Ill, ii, 

530- 
spleene, one of the emotions 
supposed to arise from that 
organ of the body, as wrath. 



A. F. II, 



105. 



spred, propagate. A. F. v, ii, 

372. 
staid, staled. A. F. iii, i, 325. 
strange, new, unknown be- 
fore. G. U. I, i, 105. 
state, rank, position. G. U. 

Ill, ii, 92. 

chair of state, throne. 

G. U. II, i, 184. 

ceremony. G. U. 11, i, 

194. 
stirre, bustle, confusion. G. U. 

II, i, 166. 
streakes, stretches. G. U. 

V, i, 42. 
suspect, suspicion. A. F. i, 

J, 177- 



3o8 



fiilossarp 



taking, condition, predica- 
ment. A. F. V, i, 17. 

tall, bold. A. F. Ill, i, 359. 

taxations, personal satirical 
allusions. A. F. Epilogue, 8. 

taxe, to censure, blame. A. F. 
IV, i, 3. 

theorbo, a musical instrument 
like a lute, but with two 
necks, much used for accom- 
paniments. A. F. II, i, 393. 

threaves, handfuls. G. U. 

II, i, 83. 

tickling, funny, amusing. 

G. U. II, i, 313. 
touch, taint, impairment. 

G. U. IV, ii, 7. 
toy, a fancy, notion. A. F. 

Ill, i, 78. 
toyes, trifles. J. F. II, i, 

383. 

traine, allure. A. F. v, ii, 

225. 

unresisted, irresistible. A. F. 
II, i, 109. 



vice, screw, or wheel. G. U. 

Ill, ii, 13. 
vildely, vilely. G. U. v, 

iii, 57- 

warrant, assure against harm. 

A. F. Ill, i, 214. 
wedlocke, wife. A. F. 1, 

ii, 118. 
whittld, intoxicated, made 

drunk. G. U. iii, ii, 263. 
Tvill, desire, lust. A. F. iii, 

i, 246. 
■wittoll, a submissive cuckold. 

A. F. V, ii, 134. 
woodcocke, a bird whose 

name was a synonym for a 

fool. A. F. V, ii, 225. 
wrapt, ravished, transported. 

G. U. Ill, ii, 367. 

yare, alert, ready. G. U. v, 
i, loi. 

yeelde, permit. G. U. iv, 
i, 31- 



SEP 5 1907 



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